


Altered Timeline

by AFScorpio91



Series: Fractured, Warped, & Altered [3]
Category: Spider-Man (Comicverse), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Amazing Spider-Man (Movies - Webb)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Depression, Experimentation, F/M, Friendship, Original Character(s), Suicidal Thoughts, Teen Angst, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-27
Updated: 2018-01-30
Packaged: 2018-08-27 09:11:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 16
Words: 57,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8395891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AFScorpio91/pseuds/AFScorpio91
Summary: Sequel to Warped Perception and Fractured Mind. The future is bleak; nearly every mutant and superhuman has been wiped out by The Scarlet Soldier. Peter Parker's children must go back in time to stop their mother from becoming Striker's weapon.





	1. Chapter 1

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Marvel or The Amazing Spider-Man. I do not own any of these characters.

*This story begins about 17 years after the first story, (so about 7 years after the second story).

 

Seas of crimson flames danced around the buildings of Miami. It was mesmerizing to stare at; the fire rapidly spreading, devouring everything as if it were alive and had a mind of its own. It may have been beautiful if it had been silent, but nothing would ever be able to cover up the screams.

The city had once been home to over 450,000 people, but within the past two days most of the residents were now presumed dead. The raging fires killed so many, leaving charred blackened corpses behind. Crumbling buildings and smoke killed others. People screamed for somebody to save them and there was nothing that he could do about it.

Peter Parker paced the room rapidly, while the room's other occupant sat at a table with his head folded into his arms, his leg nervously bouncing up and down.

"They should have been here twenty minutes ago!" Peter finally growled in frustration as he stopped in his tracks.

The other lifted his head from the table revealing blood-shot eyes. He looked around the room and finally focused on Peter.

"They'll be here," he said trying to put on a convincing smile, but it faded far too soon.

"What if _she_ found them, Harry?" Peter asked nervously as he began pacing again.

Harry closed his eyes and shook his head, placing it back into his arms.

"They'll be here," he repeated.

It was only two days ago that Scarlet had declared an outright war against Peter Parker and his family. Within those two days the city of Miami had been destroyed. As far as Peter was concerned it was all his fault. He and Quicksilver had attempted once again to stop Scarlet, and once again nothing had gone as planned, the night had ended with Quicksilver's death. Several weeks before that incident, Scarlet had succeeded in murdering two of Peter's allies; Colossus and Scott Summers AKA Cyclops.

"I need to go out there and surrender myself, Harry. People are dying every second that I don't," Peter started to advance towards the door.

Harry shot out of his seat and was in front of the door before Peter even knew what happened. "You're not leaving this room. Not yet."

"People are being killed because I won't reveal myself!" Peter yelled, half-crazed.

"We can fix it! We can fix all of this!" Harry yelled back.

It was the first time in a while that Peter saw any true emotion in his friend. Harry often seemed to have all but given up by this point. The light in his eyes had all but gone out, but he still managed to keep it together. Peter suspected the only reason Harry kept even a sliver of hope left was to ensure their makeshift "family" survived.

"I can fix this by meeting her out there," Peter said in a soft voice.

Harry put a comforting hand on his friend's shoulder, and lowered his voice, "What do you think will happen after you let her know where you are?"

"I'll die," Peter said seriously, "but she'll stop."

"She won't stop until we are _all_ dead," Harry explained to his friend. "I know you're in a tough spot right now, she singled you out, but this is not on you. When she's finished with you, she'll kill the rest of us. There aren't many left..." Harry trailed off.

Peter clenched his mouth shut, grinding his teeth. So many people were dead. It had taken several years after the explosion at Stryker's Island to even figure out that something was wrong. Both mutants and super humans had begun disappearing under mysterious circumstances and their corpses been found later. It was not until about seven months ago that ordinary humans had started dying as well under the same mysterious circumstances.

Not only had Scarlet succeeded in killing nearly every mutant and super human there was, but she had begun killing any human that she detected had a gene that could produce mutant offspring. Hundreds of thousands of people had been slaughtered, and there was no way to stop her. With every mutant or superhuman she killed Scarlet grew more powerful.

Peter and several others had tried to stop Scarlet once they figured out who was behind it. Scarlet had murdered every single one of them excluding Peter at the time, saying "You're special, I'll save you for later," with a wink.

He shook his head, trying to get rid of the horrific memory to no avail.

"What if she got to them already?" Peter suggested pessimistically to his friend. "If I hurry and surrender myself, she'll let them go."

"They'll be here," Harry took his hand off of Peter's shoulder, and guided him to the table where he had previously sat.

"How do you know?" Peter practically whispered as he sat down with a blank expression on his face.

"Trust me," Harry said. "This will be worth it in the end. If they are able to get that machine, we can fix everything that she's done. That _we've_ done."

"Let's just hope that it actually exists."

"It does. You'll see," Harry said, and then he looked towards the ceiling as a loud clanking sound revealed that the other doors to their hide-out had been opened.

"It's not her," Harry said confidently to Peter as he saw his worried expression. "It's them."

The sound of several pairs of footsteps running above them made Peter jump out of his chair.

"We got it," the door to their room quickly opened and a shaggy haired blonde twelve-year-old entered the room.

"You're safe," Harry breathed in relief and hugged his son. "Are the others-"

"Yup!" Normie smiled, "We're all good."

Peter visibly relaxed and sat up from the table, greeting Normie as well.

"Hey kid, you had me worried," Peter hugged him as well. "What took you guys so long?"

Normie's face suddenly looked worried, but then he plastered the smile back on quickly. "Sorry, nothing, we got it though."

Peter was about to question him but the doors opened up again and three new people entered the room.

"Andrew! Violet!" Peter ran to his children and wrapped his arms around them.

Harry pulled Felicia close to him and gave her a quick peck on the forehead.

"Violet's arm got burned," Andrew pointed out to Peter, and Violet glared at him. "What? It did, you know he was going to ask us if anything happened."

"My arm is the least of our worries right now," Violet pointed out.

"She's right!" one last person entered their room. She had sleek brown hair and carried two small cubes in each hand.

"You're-" Harry began.

"Kitty Pryde," she winked at him. Felicia rolled her eyes.

"You have the device with you," Peter couldn't believe his eyes. This was literally their last option in saving the world. Making everything right again.

"Yeah," Kitty said as she set both of them on the table. "It wasn't easy, either."

"Tell me what to do," Peter quickly walked up next to her, looking at the two small cubes on the table.

"This is the main device," Kitty held up the small black cube. "These numbers here are where you put in the year you want to travel back to."

"Year?" Andrew said from behind Peter. "That's as specific as that thing gets?"

"It's all we have, Andrew," Violet said as she walked up next to him. Kitty nodded to her and began again.

"Once you are transported back to a certain time, that's it. You cannot go back any further before resetting yourself. Which means if you went back, let's say 20 years too far, you will have to wait 20 years until you need to complete your task, then you can press this button and it will transport you back to present time," Kitty explained.

"So whatever year we decide to send me to, I can't jump time anymore unless I decide to come back to this present moment?" Peter questioned.

Kitty nodded her head. "The moment that you press the button to come back to present time, everything that you changed in the past will now affect the present. Try not to affect anything that doesn't need to be affected, specifically anything that doesn't have to do with our current problem. When you come back to the present, only you will have any memories of this current timeline. Also-"

Several screams erupted from right outside the building.

"Oh no..." Normie said off to the side.

"What?" Peter looked towards him. "What happened?"

Andrew and Violet looked at each other briefly.

"What!?" Peter repeated.

"She found out," Violet said in a soft voice. "When we were out and went to the meeting point to get Kitty back here, she found us."

The sound of a small explosion rattled the walls.

"She's here." Normie said frighteningly as he looked up at the ceiling.

"Harry! Secure this door with me!" Felicia called to him.

The both of them ran around the room, putting furniture up against the door. It wouldn't hold her off though. This was all for nothing, maybe a few seconds of time if that. Peter knew he needed to figure out the rest of the device, and fast.

"What's the white cube do?" Peter yelled at Kitty, who was staring at the door with fear in her eyes.

"The white cube- it- it-" she stammered.

The door to their room was suddenly torn from the hinges and flung across the room, taking Felicia with it.

"Felicia!" Harry yelled as the door slammed her into the wall with such force that her body had nearly been split into two.

Peter looked away from Felicia's body and back towards the door to see Scarlet standing outside a cold expression on her face. Harry quickly conjured up a fireball and flung it towards Scarlet. Scarlet's skin transformed into steel in the blink of an eye before the fireball struck her; the fireball exploded against her steel skin with no effect. Scarlet gave a brief smirk as her skin turned back to normal.

In one quick movement, nearly as quick as Normie, Scarlet was in front of Harry. She quickly grabbed him and lifted him up by his neck.

"You and I could have done all of this together, you know," Scarlet said to Harry. "You didn't have to die. Not yet, at least."

"Drop dead, bitch." Harry spat at her.

"Harry!" Peter jumped away from the table and towards Scarlet in an attempt to save his friend.

"Wait! No!" The twins both yelled at him.

Peter didn't hear any of them yelling for him. The one thing on his mind at the moment was saving his friend. Maybe if he offered to surrender, she would spare him. Maybe she would spare the others since they were her children.

"Let him go!" Peter yelled at Scarlet.

She marginally moved her head towards the sound of his voice.

"I said, let him go!" he repeated.

The twins both jumped as a pair of hands pulled them towards the table.

"The white cube is a backup. If something goes wrong we can bring you guys back to this time. Or, we can also get send to the exact time of where the black cube was sent," Kitty rushed to explain. "Time will move differently while you are gone. If you are gone for a day, it will only be like as if a second passed here."

"Why are you telling us this?" Violet questioned.

They all heard a crackling noise and they turned to see that Harry's entire body had turned into ice. Scarlet dropped him to the ground and he shattered into a million tiny fragments.

A second later a bright red light suddenly erupted in front of the twins and all that was in Kitty's place was a pile of ashes.

Andrew turned towards Peter and Scarlet; their parents. Scarlet was going to kill Peter any second now. Kitty told them what the white cube did for a reason, but now she wasn't even there to help them if things went bad.

"Put your hand on the cube, Vi." Andrew whispered to his sister.

"Wha-what?" Violet looked at him.

"Do it, _now!_ " he raised his voice. Violet listened and her hand went on the cube. Andrew turned one last time to see his father being tossed across the room. His hand went on the dial of the cube and he quickly turned it, knowing that Scarlet was about to blast them with the power she had stolen from Cyclops.

The dial stopped turning and both teens vanished into thin air.

The white cube read, "2012".


	2. Chapter 2

Within a second from touching the black cube, Andrew felt nauseous. He went to set his hand on the table to keep his balance, but nearly fell over as his hand went through air. The table was gone. Andrew set the cube down near his feet.

A noise from behind him startled him and he twisted himself around to investigate. Flashes of the last couple minutes blurred his vision and he got into a defensive position to take on whatever threat was about to rush at him.

The visions abruptly stopped and he focused on the figure in front of him.

"Vi?" he ran up to his sister, who was leaning up against the tree, getting sick all over the ground. "You okay?" he made sure that her hair didn't get in the way.

Wait a minute, where's the building? Why are we outside? He thought to himself, looking around at his surroundings.

"I'm fine. That was unpleasant," Violet said as she wiped off her mouth.

"The building is gone," Andrew commented.

Violet looked around too. "Well, it worked. The building we were in must not have been built yet I guess," she shrugged.

Andrew picked up the cube and examined it. "2012?"

"We aren't even technically born yet," Violet said with slightly widened eyes. "Do you think Dad is okay?"

Andrew slowly shook his head. "I'm surprised we even made it out of there. We can fix this though, we can save him," he smiled and pocketed the cube. "We just need to ensure that Stryker never gets his hands on our mother so that she never gets turned into Scarlet."

"We need to make sure Stryker doesn't get his hands on anyone if we can prevent it," Violet crossed her arms.

"We will. Any idea on where to start?"

"Really?" Violet raised an eyebrow. "The island in Colombia sounds like a great start."

"The only problem is that we're still in Miami. That's nearly a day's drive from where we live... we used to live. We need to fly to Colombia. And rent a boat. We have no car, no money, no identification-"

"Okay!" Violet cut him off. "No need to elaborate on how difficult this is going to be," she rubbed her temples.

Andrew sighed and sat in the grass. His sister began to pace around the area and was mumbling to herself, so he figured he'd let her work out the details. When he sat down, he felt something in his pockets.

'"No way," he pulled his cell phone out, surprised that it was still turned on. "Vi, do you still have your phone on you? Mine's at 94%."

Violet stopped walking and checked her pockets.

"No..." she said in a disappointed tone, "it must have fallen out when we were running back to Dad and Harry. I still have this with me though!"

She held up a pocket-sized photo book just big enough to hold about ten pictures.

"Oh great, those will definitely come in handy." Andrew teased.

"It's the only thing I really brought when we went into hiding," Violet stuffed the photo book back into her pocket. "And you might want to turn your phone off. They won't have battery chargers for that here."

Andrew rolled his eyes and shut off his phone before pocketing it. Violet began walking towards the city, so Andrew picked up the cube as well.

"Where are we going?" Andrew caught up to her.

"To the library. The building that Stryker used on that island used to be a prison. It just hit me that neither of us actually knew how long Stryker had actually been there. I want to know if the prison is still running there; if it is that obviously means he's not going to be there yet, if it's not, we will need to check that place out."

"Good thinking." he grinned.

XXX

"Well, this was pointless," Andrew leaned back in the chair as Violet told him how her phone call went.

"It wasn't pointless, we just saved ourselves a trip to Colombia," Violet pointed out.

Violet had done a quick search online with Gorgona Island, Colombia. It turns out the prison was still being used. She wrote down the number to the prison and then had asked several people if she could use their cell phone, which took a couple tries. She finally got through and spoke with the warden of the prison, who had very bad English. The prison was going to be shut down in about eight months and prisoners were to be transferred to Brazil.

"Okay, but now we're back to square one. We have absolutely no leads on where he would be. Our mother and Harry don't get taken by Stryker until around the time that we're born, which is like two years from now," Andrew said in a rushed whisper.

"We do know of one place that he was specifically attracted to though."

"New York," Andrew nodded his head.

"Exactly," Violet smiled. "We just need to figure out a way to get there."

"With no money or car," Andrew added unhelpfully.

"I might have an idea..." Violet began.

Andrew raised an eyebrow waiting for her to continue.

"How about this. We'll meet back here at the front entrance in two hours. I need to go look for a college in the area. I think I might have a way to get us to New York. Can you try to figure out a way to get us some money for some gas and food?" Violet asked him.

"What do you want me to go do a street performance or something?" Andrew laughed nervously.

"Perfect!" she hugged him. "Meet me back here in two hours."

Andrew waited several minutes before leaving the library. He walked around for several blocks, searching for something in particular. Once he spotted it, he froze on the other side of the street. He hated using the extra powers that Stryker had given him, it almost seemed like a slap in the face to his family.

With a heavy sigh and a bad feeling in his gut, he crossed the street to the man at the ATM machine.

XXX

Violet was biting her nails, searching the huge bulletin board right outside of the first college that she was able to find - FIU. It was Winter Break in a couple of days, so many people would be traveling back home for the holidays.

"Come on... come on..." she kept walking looking at the other bulletin boards. "There had to be one...AHA!" she yelled loudly and then quickly looked around her.

Several students had looked in her direction, but shrugged it off as if this type of behavior was usual here.

Violet stared at the piece of paper in her hands that read in big bold letters at the top, 'ATTENTION NEW YORKERS', and had a quick paragraph about car pooling and expenses. The girl's name who posted it was Cindy and at the bottom were several tabs with the person's phone number, but Violet instead took the whole piece of paper with her.

A guy with a huge panther on his shirt and baseball cap passed her, smiling and nodding his head at her.

"Hey!" she called to him as he passed her.

The guy stopped and looked back at her, "Hey."

"Could I please use your phone for a moment? I lost mine earlier today," she frowned.

The guy looked slightly disappointed, but mumbled 'yeah' and handed her his phone from his pocket.

Violet turned away from the guy and dialed the number on the paper that she had taken down from the bulletin board.

"Hello?" a girl's voice answered the phone, presumably Cindy.

"Hi, is this Cindy?" Violet asked.

"Yes, who's this?" the girl was very upbeat.

"My name is Violet. I got your number from the paper you posted and I was interested in car pooling with you to New York if the spots are still available?"

"Oh-uh-wow!" the girl beamed. "Yeah sure! So far it's only me and my friend Megan going, not many people that go here live in New York."

"Oh, yeah, I know..." Violet said awkwardly.

"So you said 'spots' available. Who else would be coming?" Cindy asked.

"It would be just my brother Andrew and I. We'll have gas money and everything. When would you guys be leaving?"

"Well," Cindy began hesitantly, "I know it's like only Wednesday and most people don't leave until Friday, but I didn't get any calls back so Megan and I decided that we were um... I know most people would say it's bad to skip classes and everything, but you know..."

Violet could tell the girl was kind of ditsy over the phone, but they needed a way to New York so she was trying to keep her patience. "Yeah no I totally get it, but when were you planning on leaving?"

"Six." the girl replied.

"Six days!?" Violet internally groaned.

"No, at six today!"

"Oh!" Violet perked up. "That's great! Where should we meet you at?"

"The Starbucks across from across the school, be there at six!"

"Okay, great. Thanks, bye." Violet hung up the phone and handed it back to the guy, telling him thanks as well.

Violet ran back to the library, where Andrew was already waiting for her. He was sitting on the steps with a frown on his face. Right when he saw her though, he jumped up from the steps and the side of his mouth pulled up in a half smile.

"What time is it?" Violet asked.

Andrew huffed out a laugh. "Calm down, you're not late. It's almost four though."

"Okay, so I got us a ride! It's a carpool with these two girls, one of them was Cindy I don't remember the other one's names. They go to FIU, which we're going to have to pretend to go to as well. So try to stay clear of that subject whatsoever. I was thinking maybe we could try sleeping most of the time there to avoid anything like that. We will need to help with gas which is obvious, and- crap!"

"What?" Andrew looked startled.

"We don't have any luggage or bags or anything, that's going to look strange to them," she looked worried.

"Let's go to a store quick and get some things. We're going to need snacks and stuff anyways," he suggested.

"Okay, yeah sounds good," Violet nodded. "But, we need to hurry."

"Why do we need to hurry?"

"We need to meet them across the school today at six. That's when we're leaving."

"Damn Vi, we're cutting this pretty close," Andrew replied. "Let's head out then."

They found a Walmart a few blocks away from the library. Andrew picked out two shoulder bags for them while Violet picked out their necessities. They both got some snacks and went to the check out.

"Are you sure we're going to have enough money to pay for this stuff _and_ give those girls gas money?" Violet asked in a hushed voice.

"Yeah, don't worry about it. I made a decent amount with my acrobatic skills," Andrew joked, but Violet could hear some tension in his voice.

"Are you okay?" Violet asked him after they had paid and left the store.

"What do you mean?" he asked defensively.

"Nothing." she shook her head.

They made it to the Starbucks by 5:58pm, and right away they noticed a girl standing next to her car with her arms folded.

"Are you Violet and Andrew?" she called to them as they crossed the parking lot.

"Yeah, hey, it's Violet!" she waved at the girl.

"I told you to be here at six!" she said, sounding slightly annoyed.

Violet quickly glanced at Andrew. "It's not six yet, I thought we were early."

The girl sighed and opened up the back door to her car. "If you're not early, then you're late."

"Oh, uh, sorry...?" Violet set her bag in the car.

"Whatever, it's fine." Cindy turned her attention towards Andrew. "So you must be-oh my God." she had a shocked look on her face.

Violet didn't know exactly what happened, but Andrew gave a slight nod.

"They're contacts." he pointed to his eyes.

"Oh- yeah I knew that." she sniffed. "I knew there was no way eyes could actually be that color. They're pretty hot though." she smiled and winked as she got into the front seat.

Andrew shrugged at Violet and both of them got into the back seats.

"So this is Megan, she's my best friend." Cindy pointed to the blonde next to her in the front seat. Both of the girls were blonde and looked like they had spray tan on. "And Megan, this is Violet and Andrew, they're brother and sister."

"Hey." Megan smiled to them, lingering on Andrew.

"You two packed pretty light." Cindy looked down at their bags.

"We had limited time to pack and we figured we have more clothes back home in New York anyways." Andrew shrugged. Violet noticed he seemed a bit put-off.

It was the same thing with Andrew as it was for Harry. Stryker's experiments had permanent effects on the both of them. Harry had sharpened teeth that he was self-conscious of, and Andrew kept his neon blue eyes.

"Oh, okay!" Cindy shrugged and started up the car. "Who's ready to go back to New York!?"


	3. Chapter 3

"I'm never going on a road trip in the future," Andrew mumbled as he and Violet waved goodbye to Cindy and Megan.

"It wasn't _that_ bad," Violet teased as she steadied the backpack onto her shoulder.

Andrew gave her an incredulous look, "we had to pull into a rest stop every _hour_. Those two decided that they wanted to sing half the time instead of listening to actual music. Cindy wouldn't let us eat in her car, and to top it all off, that Megan girl was on the phone with her ex-boyfriend half the time arguing about the dumbest-"

Violet rolled her eyes and gave him a playful shove before he could finish his sentence. "Okay, you're right. That ride wasn't what I expected, but at least we're in New York now."

Andrew nodded.

"Okay, so since we currently have no leads on where Stryker is, we need to look for someone that he is going to be after," Violet began walking down the sidewalk.

"...and that would be?" Andrew began to follow her.

"Doctor Curt Connors," Violet turned back and smiled at him. "And I know just where to start," she plucked a rolled up newspaper off a bench and began to flip through it. Andrew crossed his arms and waited. Violet frowned and turned back to the front of the newspaper and began flipping through it again.

"Damn!" she tossed the newspaper back on the bench.

"What?" Andrew asked as Violet continued down the sidewalk.

Violet sighed loudly, "Dad told us that the first non-human he went up against was Doctor Curt Connors. Apparently the doctor worked with our grandfather at Oscorp. Connors injected himself with something in hope that it would regrow his missing arm. It backfired on him and turned him into a giant lizard. The problem is nothing in that paper said anything about giant lizards, _or_ Spider-Man for that matter."

Andrew thought about that for a moment, "okay. Well maybe he just hasn't been caught yet. Shouldn't we go check the guy out ourselves?"

Violet shot him a skeptical look, "and say what, 'Hey Doctor Connors, you haven't been injecting yourself with a serum that turns you into a giant lizard lately, have you?'"

"Obviously not, but we can still investigate him. It's not like we have anything else we can look into right now."

"You're right," Violet agreed with him. "And Oscorp is like..." she took a look around, "...maybe only thirty or so blocks from here. Let's get walking."

"Can't we just swing there?" Andrew questioned.

"Absolutely not!" Violet practically yelled at him. "First of all, we're in regular clothes. Second of all, we can't do that kind of stuff until the city learns about Spider-Man. At least then we could get mistaken for him."

"Calm down," Andrew snorted. "I was mostly joking anyways. Let's go," he motioned for her to start walking.

It was a quiet walk to the Oscorp building. Andrew kept thinking about what Violet had said about the newspaper. If neither the Lizard or Spider-Man was mentioned, then that meant they had no leads. He wondered how long they were going to be stuck in this time.

"Should I just go in or should we both go in?" Violet asked.

Andrew looked up from the ground. He hadn't even noticed they had arrived.

"Both of us," Andrew answered and walked into the familiar building with Violet trailing right behind him.

Another group of people entered with them as they walked in. Andrew had to hold in his laughter as a dark skinned man with a bad comb-over and glasses that didn't quite fit his face walked past him and almost tripped as he walked through the doors.

"Come on let's head up," Andrew nodded towards the elevators.

"Hold on, let me check the map so we know which direction to head in," Violet pulled him over to the wall that had a large highlighted map projection.

" _Doctor_ Connors is probably going to be on one of the lab floors. Let's just go ask around," Andrew suggested, tugging on Violet's sleeve. She shooed his hand away as she kept looking at the map.

Someone behind them cleared their throat and Andrew turned around to face a woman with light brown hair and a black pencil skirt. He would have considered her pretty if it wasn't for the snobbish expression pasted on her face.

"Can I help you?" the woman, Andrew noted her name tag read 'Gabriela', asked.

Violet turned around at that, "Yes, actually. We're trying to find where Doctor Connors' office is located."

Gabriela smiled in an unfriendly way, "do either of you have an appointment?"

"N-no," Violet pulled her eyebrows together. "We just need to speak with him."

"I'm sorry, you'll have to schedule an appointment. Even then, he may not have time for you. He can't just make time to talk to any kid that comes in off the street," she looked at Andrew's black zip-up hoodie with a sneer.

"Kid?" Andrew looked at his sister and back at the woman. "We're seventeen. This is important. We need to see him," he glared.

Violet slightly nudged Andrew's side and directed her eyes to her side. Two men dressed in security outfits were slowly approaching from the right side.

"I suggest you both leave the building otherwise security will be forced to remove you," Gabriela placed her hands on her hips.

For a moment, Andrew thought about using one of his powers that Stryker had given to him; fear augmentation. If he tapped into the woman and security guards' heads and made them think they were afraid to be around them, maybe they would back off. On the other hand, he could make them feel as if they were having a brain aneurysm and then run past them to get to Connors.

"Come on, let's go," Andrew felt his sister push him towards the door and he followed before he could do either of the things he was thinking about.

Violet shoved the front door open and stormed through it, "God! That lady was such a-"

"-Bitch," Andrew finished. "And to think, our father is going to own that building in a couple years from now. Hopefully she gets fired..." he smiled thinking about it.

Violet nodded and didn't comment further.

"We'll just have to come back at night sometime soon and sneak in," Andrew said.

"For now maybe we should focus on where we are going to stay. We have no idea how long we're going to be stuck in this time," Violet said as the both of them began walking again, in the opposite direction of the Oscorp building.

"Motel?" Andrew suggested.

"You have to be eighteen. We won't be able to get one."

It was nearly ten minutes before either of them said anything again.

"What about the guest house at the Osborn mansion?" Andrew pointed out.

"You're joking right? Harry's father still lives there and I'm sure he'd wonder why there were two random people camping out in the guest house," Violet shook her head.

"It would just be a place to sleep at. We know where one of the keys for it are, remember when Harry was surprised to see it was still in the same place after we got back from the island?"

"Okay, but what if the cleaning crew finds us there? They'll call the police on us. Or what if Norman Osborn decides to go into the guest house for some reason?"

"Vi, they're not going to be cleaning at night time. We'll be fine. Besides, what other option is there for right now?" Andrew pressed.

Violet sighed and paused on the sidewalk, "tonight we will check it out. I want to see what time the cleaning crew shows up before we break into the guest house. That way we at least have some knowledge of what time we need to leave in the mornings. We can't have attention being brought to us right now."

"We won't be breaking in if we have the key," Andrew grinned. Violet rolled her eyes.

They began walking again for several minutes when Violet stopped in her tracks.

"What? What is it?" Andrew began looking around quickly, gaining some weird looks from people passing by them.

"It's our school," Violet pointed across the street. "Come on," she smiled and ran across the street without bothering to use the crosswalk.

"I didn't like high school too much," Andrew commented. "Couldn't concentrate on my work."

"Well with everything that happened-" Violet trailed off. "Too bad neither of us were able to finish though. This time it will be different though. We won't have to drop out sophomore year due to our mom trying to murder us," she laughed without humor.

People started to pour out of the school, chatter and laughter growing louder. The school day must have ended and people were starting to walk to their buses or walk home. Through the crowd of people, Andrew saw an oddly familiar face.

"That girl over there..." Andrew nudged Violet to point out the girl, "...the blonde one. Is that who I think it is?"

"Gwen," Violet whispered.

Andrew stared at the blonde girl who they have never truly known or met, but they had met a shifter that introduced themselves as Gwen when they were ten. Said shifter also had tried to murder them.

"She's very pretty," Violet commented. "When she's not starting buildings on fire and trying to ruin our lives."

"That wasn't actually her. The real Gwen was dead by then," Andrew said.

"I know. It's just... it's hard to see her and not think of what we went through with that shifter."

Gwen was talking with two of her friends it looked like. She was smiling and laughing, a huge pile of books in her arms.

Andrew's spider sense went off and he turned around quickly, just catching a basketball that would have hit him in the back of the head. His eyes scanned the people in the surrounding area. There was a group of four guys who were laughing. One of them, the tallest one with dark blonde hair came bounding over.

"Hey man, sorry about that, thought you were Parker," he held out a hand showing he wanted the basketball back. "Whoa, freaky eyes dude."

Andrew froze when he saw who's face it was staring back at him.

It was the first person that he had ever killed. He had only been ten years old at the time.

He obviously looked different; he wouldn't be dead for another... maybe twelve years from now. Andrew would never forget that man's face when he shot him through the heart with his arrow in that field.

"Come on, Flash!" one the guys from the group called to their friend.

"Yo, can I get that ball back?" Flash raised an eyebrow and nodded to the basketball in Andrew's hands still.

Andrew passed the ball to Flash. The blonde ran back to his friends without another word. Andrew turned back to his sister, his face pale.

"I know what you're thinking right now. And _that_ is not your fault," Violet whispered to him. He shook his head slightly, she knew him all too well.

"I _kill_ him in the future," Andrew sniffed derisively. "How is that not my fault?"

"We've been over this before," Violet said patiently. "Whatever you did while you had that chip in your head you cannot be accounted for. Besides, you won't have to... do that... this time."

Andrew let out a heavy sigh. It was incredible the amount of forgiveness his family had given him after the island incident. Harry had been on that island for ten years, and had murdered dozens and dozens of people under the influence of Stryker's chip. Harry knew what it was like, to become something that you would never choose to be. He helped Andrew cope with his demons when they had arrived back in America all those years ago.

"Hey! You two!"

A somewhat chubby man with a thin brown mustache walked speedily up to them. He was obviously a teacher at the school, with the multiple binders in his arms and the briefcase.

"Can we help you?" Andrew asked, his voice laced with annoyance.

The chubby man furrowed his brow, "What is your name?"

"Osborn," Andrew said without thinking. He obviously couldn't use 'Parker', as the teachers here probably knew his father.

The man squinted his eyes at the both of them and jutted out his lower jaw, "I suggest you both leave now. This is school property and neither of you are students here."

Andrew fought the urge to roll his eyes as the man folded his arms together.

"All right, all right. We're leaving," Andrew said coolly as he and Violet began to walk away from the school.

"Geez, we are getting kicked out of every place we go today," Violet complained. "I don't know about checking out the Osborn guest house tonight, Andrew. We're just having bad luck today."

"Hey, third time's a charm," Andrew grinned.

Andrew moved over slightly as he heard a skateboarder roll up from behind them. Instead of skating past them, the teen in the layered hoodie and green cargo jacket stopped in front of them, blocking their path. He flipped his skateboard up into his hands and looked right at Andrew.

"Did I hear you use the name 'Osborn' back there?" the teen asked them.

"No. Way." Violet whispered next to him, just loud enough for Andrew to hear.

The messy haired brunette waited expectantly for an answer. A camera was dangling around his neck.

"Okay..." he trailed off. "It's just that I heard Flash use my name and then I saw you two. Mr. Sisson asked you your name, and I swear you said Osborn. I wasn't going to ask you about it until I heard you mention the name a second time," he rambled on awkwardly as Violet and Andrew stared at him.

"Uh- um..." Andrew had no idea what to say.

What is there to say when you've just met your father several years before you've even been born yet?

XXX

"Where are they!?" Scarlet shrieked loudly, staring in the spot that the twins had been in just seconds before.

Normie covered his ears as Scarlet's shrieks filled the room.

He tried not to look at the many pieces of ice that were shattered across the room. He tried not to think that Scarlet had just murdered his father. That Andrew and Violet had just abandoned him here in this room. He knew what they had to do, but he wasn't ready to die. He hoped that they would fix whatever they had to soon.

"Where. Are. They." Scarlet repeated, flashing across the room in an unnatural speed.

Her eyes went pitch black as she looked around the room, seemingly hoping the twins would randomly show up again.

"They're gone," Normie told her. "Th-they're going to fix you. They're going to fix everything that has happened."

"FIX ME!?" Scarlet screeched loudly, causing Normie to cover his ears again.

In his peripheral vision, there was a small movement across the room where Normie had seen Scarlet throw Peter. He didn't dare look over there, in fear that Scarlet would switch her attention back to Peter, if he wasn't already dead yet.

"There is nothing to fix. I am immortal. I am a God now," Scarlet said to him, power radiating from her voice.

Normie's eyes darted to the ice shards on the floor again.

Don't think about it, he repeated to himself.

"What is that?" Scarlet pointed to the white cube on the table.

"I- I don't know," Normie whispered.

"LIAR!"

Normie found himself being hoisted up from the ground by the neck. He placed his hands on Scarlet's arm to try to relieve some of the pressure so he could try to catch his breath.

"You know that I know when people are lying, Normie. Now tell me, what does that white box do?" Scarlet said slowly.

"I can't," he said through ragged breaths.

Suddenly, Scarlet's eyes went back to normal, all of the black fading. She dropped Normie and he struggled to breathe.

"Maybe you can't tell me where they are, but do you know when they are?" Scarlet smiled deviously.

Normie's face fell flat.

"Come on Normie, you told me they wanted to fix everything. They disappeared in less than a second. Parker wouldn't have risked coming out of hiding if there wasn't a damn good reason."

He frowned, "I can't tell you. I'm sorry."

Scarlet conjured up a ball of ice in her hand and swiftly threw it towards Normie. It collided against his chest and he let out a gasp of air.

"Hurts, doesn't it?" she remarked. "It will freeze your internal organs within minutes and your body will shut down. The pain will be gone soon and you won't feel a thing. You'll die peacefully. Unless... unless you decide to tell me about this white box and how it will get me to them," Scarlet said impatiently.

Normie grabbed his chest, he could already feel the ice slowly making its way through his body.

"Don't you understand, Normie? The only way for them to 'fix everything' as you say is to make sure that Mary Jane never goes to that island to become what I am now. Do you understand what that means for you?" she said seriously.

Normie though about this for a moment.

"I won't exist," he said out loud.

"No, you won't," she shook her head sadly. "But, if you help me, if you help me find where they went, _I_ will make sure you stay alive. I already have the speed that I need, I do not need your powers."

Normie wiped away a tear that he didn't notice had already slid down his cheek.

"I can reverse this," Scarlet pointed to the ice on his chest. "Help me and I will help you, Normie. You don't have to die."

He was starting to feel weak. He could feel himself slowly slipping away. He didn't want to die. He had just turned twelve a couple weeks ago.

"Make it stop," Normie whispered. "Please."

Scarlet's mouth twitched up in a smile and she nodded. She placed one hand on his chest and the ice slowly began to retreat, and a warming sensation replaced it.

When the ice was completely gone, Scarlet stood up and walked over to the table. She placed the white cube in one hand and walked back over to Normie.

"Let's catch some spiders," she smiled as her eyes went completely black again.


	4. Chapter 4

Andrew stared, dumbstruck, at his teenage father staring back at him, clearly waiting for a response. Andrew noticed he stood about an inch or so taller than his father, while Violet was several inches shorter.

"You must have heard wrong," Violet smiled and Andrew felt her push him forward. They swiftly walked around Peter only for him to catch up and block them again.

"I- it's just that I didn't hear wrong," Peter said, responding to Violet but staring at Andrew. "You're not related to the Osborns."

"I'm not," Andrew said in a clipped tone. 

Peter raised an eyebrow and looked towards Violet. It looked as if he was going to say something to her, but decided not to.

"Can you please move now? You're blocking the sidewalk," Violet said.

Peter nodded and moved over, allowing them to pass. He still looked unsure, but jumped back on his skateboard and started in the direction opposite from them.

"I need to see something," Andrew said suddenly, bending over and picking up a small rock. He faced Peter and brought his hand back, as if he were about to throw the rock.

Violet grabbed his arm. "What are you doing??"

"I'm not going to hit him. I need to check something," he said reassuringly.

Violet released his arm.

Andrew flung the small rock towards Peter, but it flew pretty low to the ground. The rock hit the wheels of the skateboard just right and Peter went flying forward, skidding his arm on the ground.

"Andrew!" Violet berated him.

"Nice one, Parker!" they heard Flash yell from across the street, laughing with the guys. 

Peter glanced around quickly and then picked up his skateboard and kept going in the same direction he left in. His arm was bleeding, which Andrew felt guilty about.

"Well, now we know he's not even Spider-Man yet," Andrew said in a hushed tone to Violet.

" _That's_ why you made him crash?" she shook her head, giving Andrew a good whack to the back of his head.

Andrew swore and continued walking. "Don't you get it!?" he hissed at her. "There are no super humans or mutants here right now. None."

"We're stuck here with no leads," Violet said somberly. Andrew nodded.

"I guess now we camp out in the Osborn guest house until we get more information?" he suggested. It wasn't the most appealing plan they had, but as of now there was nothing.  
Violet stopped in her tracks and gasped.

Andrew raised an eyebrow as a small hopeful smile spread across Violet's face. "...What?" he asked slowly.

"We never did finish high school."

"No," was all Andrew said as he began walking again. 

"But-"

"Vi, no,” Andrew said again, quickening his pace. He stopped when he felt a tug on his arm.

"Andrew, just hear me out," Violet pleaded.

He folded his arms and sighed loudly.

"First of all, we never were able to finish high school. And for good reason-" she added when Andrew opened his mouth to speak, "-but, all the same, we never finished. This is our chance."

"Why does school matter when our world is currently going to complete shit?" he asked bluntly.

"It's something to _do_. Think about it, Andrew. We _cannot_ interfere with important things right now. It's not the time. We could change something huge later on. Dad needs to turn into Spider-Man. He dates Gwen. Doctor Connors turns into a giant lizard. Harry injects himself and gets his Goblin split personality. Gwen dies. Dad meets Mom. They fall in love. We cannot mess any of that up, and that all has to happen before we can leave this place." Violet said sternly.

Andrew rolled his eyes at her. "Okay, so no major changes. Got it. Why do we have to wait until then to leave?"

"We need to make sure that you and I will be born," Violet shook her head. "Remember, Dad said something about a huge fight in a warehouse is where he thought Mom died, but Stryker actually took her then. That is where you and I will be. That is when we can change the future, _and_ ensure we will still be in it." 

Andrew slowly nodded his head. "That actually sounds like a plan. I still don't understand _why_ you would want to go back to school though?"

"Not only will it give us something to do, but we can keep an eye on things." Violet placed her hands on her hips. "I want to do this Andrew, but I'm not going to without you."

He sniffed derisively and unfolded his arms. "How would we even get in? We don't have parents here to enroll us, we don't even have a home address."

"Emancipated minors are able to enroll themselves no questions asked. It's only after they are enrolled and in school will the school ask for proof of address and other legal papers. We can figure that out later," she waved her hand as if it was an unimportant detail.

Andrew narrowed his eyes. "Is this really that important to you?"

"Yes!" Violet smiled, seeming to know that she was winning.

Sighing, Andrew turned around and started back towards the school. "Come on then slow poke, time to enroll ourselves into high school. Again."

Violet beamed and bounced over to her brother. "Thanks, Andrew." She wrapped her arms around him in a hug.

"Whatever, Vi." He wormed his way out of her grasp as a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

XXX

Within a week, the pair of them were enrolled into school. The Osborn guest house had been the perfect place to stay at night. It seemed like the cleaning crew only came in there twice a week. Violet had to dissuade Andrew from sneaking into the house to get a glimpse of Harry's father, Norman Osborn. They had been living in the guest house for a week now and hadn't even caught a glimpse of the man.

"See Andrew, it's not so bad. We even have three classes together," Violet grinned as she compared their schedules. They were on their way to their first day at the "new" high school. 

Andrew shoved the schedule into his pocket without looking at it. "You're going to owe me big time for this, just so you know," he commented.

"I know,” she continued to grin excitedly. 

"You're such a nerd," he shook his head as she shrugged. 

They both turned the corner on the last block before the school. 

"So, are you going to tell me where you snuck off to this morning?" Violet asked casually.

Andrew paused and dug into his jeans pocket. "Crap, thanks for reminding me.” He took out a hard plastic card and handed it to Violet as he continued to dig into his pockets.

"You can get into a lot of trouble for this, you know," Violet pursed her lips as she looked at the fake ID. 

Andrew took out another card and quickly placed it into his wallet. "All I did was... _convince_... a guy to make them," he grinned. "Besides, you wanted us to go to school and we needed identification and proof of address and all that."

"Violet _Grimshaw_ ," she groaned, shoving the ID into her pocket. "Nice, Andrew."

Andrew chuckled, not replying.

"Guess we better head in," Violet nodded towards the school. Students were hurrying inside, and they needed to get to first period in the next five minutes. Violet looked at Andrew, anxiety crossing her features.

"Don't tell me you're nervous," Andrew elbowed her side. "You were always good with people."

"It's not _me_ I'm worried about." she said in a low voice. "Are you going to be okay?"

"Me?" Andrew raised an eyebrow at her. "Always am." 

Violet looked somewhat reassured. The last couple of students made their way into the school just as the twins walked in. 

The first few classes were pretty dull in Andrew's opinion. The first two were algebra and English. Third period was a study hall, which he didn't mind because Violet was with him. Fourth period was economics, fifth period was Spanish with Violet.

"You want to learn the worst part of my day so far?" Andrew asked Violet as they left their Spanish class. He didn't even give her a chance to answer before he responded anyways. "Having to introduce myself in front of the class. It's pointless, and it's not like anyone gives a crap anyways."

"The classes aren't so bad though," Violet commented.

"These classes blow," Andrew whispered to her as they made their way to their sixth period lunch. "We took all these like freshman and sophomore year. They were easy then, they're literally going to kill me from boredom now," he complained.

"Well, obviously none of our credits were going to transfer," Violet replied. "It's nice to refresh our minds though."

Andrew sniffed and then paused as they entered the lunch room. 

"Hm?" Violet looked at him questioningly.

"Look who we have lunch with," he chuckled without any humor. Violet looked in the direction he was staring at. 

Flash looked like he was threatening some younger kid for money. It bothered Andrew that nobody around them was doing anything, but the kid handed Flash something and it broke up rather quickly.

"And over there," he nodded towards the other end of the large room. Gwen was sitting next to a couple other girls. The girls were all chatting and laughing, but Gwen was more interested in a book that she seemed unable to pry her eyes away from. Andrew wondered what book she was reading.

"And last, look who just walked in," Andrew pointed out Peter walking through the doors, headphones on over his ears. 

"How about today we eat outside?" Violet asked, sensing her brother's discomfort.

"Sure, sure." Andrew nodded and followed her outside.

Andrew wasn't sure exactly why he felt uneasy being around them. Flash had never personally done anything to him, he had just been helping to get Andrew back home to his family. In doing so, he was rewarded with an arrow to the heart. Gwen hadn't even been Gwen at the time, but seeing her brought up memories of the shifter, which in turn brought up memories of the island.

Seventh period was an AP Biology class. This was the only class he was able to get enrolled in that was about the normal levels.

Andrew swore as he walked into the room, causing several students to look towards him. Of course _they_ were going to be in this period with him. He was seriously thinking about just dropping the class altogether when the door shut behind him.

"Go on now, get to your seat." Mr. Sisson, the man that had yelled at Violet and himself for being on the school property last week, gestured to him. 

Andrew spotted two empty seats, one in the front of the classroom, which was directly in front of _Gwen Stacy_. Sitting right behind her, of course, was none other than his father. The other empty seat was in the back corner. Andrew headed towards the back.

"Hold on one moment," Mr. Sisson called out to Andrew as he paused.

"What?" Andrew questioned as he turned to the portly man, annoyance lacing his voice. He just wanted to get to the back empty seat without causing attention to himself, which obviously was not going to happen.

" _You're_ my new student?" The teacher narrowed his eyes at the teenager, and then scanned a piece of paper in his hands. "It says here your name is Andrew Grimshaw. The other day when I saw you, you told me your last name was Osborn. Lying to a teacher can get you suspended." 

"I wasn't even enrolled here at the time," Andrew shrugged.

Mr. Sisson stared narrowly at him. "Take a seat up front."

"I'm not sitting there," he responded

"Young man...." the teacher said in what Andrew assumed was supposed to be threatening, but the way the man's eyes bulged made him look like a fish.

"There's an empty chair in the back row," Andrew pointed out.

"That's great, now seat yourself in the front row or else go to the principal's office. Your choice," the teacher smirked and sat at his desk. 

Andrew looked quickly between the front row and the door. He caught a glimpse of his father staring at him, more out of curiosity than anything. Finally, he decided it wasn't worth it and sat himself down in the front row.

"Don't worry about him, he's all bark no bite," a voice from behind Andrew said in a low whisper.

Andrew turned around, knowing who was behind him, but it surprised him nonetheless. It was her face that surprised him. Whereas the shifter Gwen was nothing but cold, and seemingly heartless, the Gwen right next to him smiled with such kindness that it caught him off guard. He opened his mouth to talk, but nothing came out.

Gwen giggled and then whispered again, “He LOVES science. Just pretend you do too and maybe he won't suspend you." He didn't notice back then, but she had soft freckles running under her eyes to just over the bridge of her nose.

"Hey, I like science,” Andrew responded, finally getting his voice back. "I wouldn't have taken an AP class otherwise."

Gwen smiled one last time at his before she put her attention to the front of the room where the teacher began writing on the chalkboard. He could feel Peter's eyes burning holes in the back of him the rest of the period.

Last period he had gym class. Luckily, only Gwen had been in that one with him. It was a miracle Flash had only been in lunch with them.

School ended and Violet and Andrew made their way back to the Osborn guest house. 

"Do you have any classes with Dad?" Andrew asked as they made their way onto the Osborn property. "Other than lunch, I mean."

"Yeah, but just gym. Flash is in that one too,” Violet said.

"I have gym with Gwen,” Andrew responded. "I also have AP Bio with Dad and Gwen. This is all a bit weird for me, Vi."

"I know it's weird. But Andrew, we are the _last_ hope for everyone that we love. For... for well, the world. We just have to hold out in this time for..."

"...like two more years?" Andrew finished for her. "I know, it's just- Violet wait."

"What is it?" she asked, just a second too late. She had already opened up the door to the guest house, and the woman inside froze when she saw them.


	5. Chapter 5

Violet slammed the door before the woman inside of the guest house was able to get a word out. She held onto the door handle and looked up at her brother.

"Andrew..." she said in a soft voice. Andrew's gazed was fixed on the door handle. "We need to leave."

"Everything we have right now is hidden in there. We're nearly out of money, and I am not giving up the only safe place we have right now," he rushed out the words. 

"Hello?" the woman from inside called out. "I- I'm going to call the police if you don't leave right now."

Andrew extended his hand towards the door handle. "What are you going to do?" Violet asked him. "You're not going to hurt her?"

He flinched just enough for her to notice, and let out a bitter chuckle. "Have some trust in me, Vi."

Violet tentatively let go of the handle, "you know I do." 

Andrew opened up the door and put his hands out in a placating way. "We're not going to hurt you," he said calmly.

The middle-aged woman, “Ava” her name tag read, pulled out her cell phone. "I mean it, if you don't leave now I am calling the police!" 

In a swift move, Andrew grabbed her phone from her. She was about to scream, but he held one hand over her mouth firmly, making sure she was able to breath from her nose. With his other hand, he held the back of her head so she would focus on him. His vivid blue eyes seemed to glow.

"You are _not_ going to call the police," he said, his voice sharp and demanding. "You are not going to tell anybody that you saw us today. Understand?"

Ava's heartbeat was quickening. Her pupils dilated, but she nodded her head quickly.

"I'm going to take my hand off your mouth. Don't scream. Just answer my questions," Andrew said to her, his voice calmer now. Ava nodded again. He released his hand over her mouth, but kept his other hand behind her head, forcing her to focus on his eyes.

"Are you the only one who handles the guest room here?" he asked.

Ava nodded. "Y-yes. I come in here twice a week to do a quick dusting and vacuum. I normally come in the mornings, but my son was sick and I came into work late today."  
Andrew nodded once and stared thoughtfully at the Ava. "Continue to come here on your normal schedule. If you miss coming here in the morning, do not come at all. Make sure nobody else comes here, and I'm sure you understand you are not to say a word to anybody about this, right?"

"I understand."

"Good," Andrew released her. "Now go," he commanded. 

Ava left without another word.

"You're something else," Violet walked into the room, shaking her head at him. "We could have just grabbed our stuff and found somewhere else."

"There is nowhere else right now," he shrugged. "Besides, I like it here. It's the only familiar thing in our lives right now."

"We could have found something," Violet mumbled, dropping herself in the arm chair on the other side of the large room.

Andrew threw his hands up in the air. "Then go find someplace else," he said. Violet's eyes widened, but she didn't reply. "Sorry," he amended quickly.

"You seem tense. What is it?" Violet asked him.

"It's nothing," he sighed. "Look, I'll be back some time later tonight."

Violet nodded to him, not asking any further questions. When she pulled out an old copy of _Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire_ from her bag, Andrew took it as his cue to leave.

It was only a couple hours later that Andrew found himself staring at his old house from across the street. He was unsure on the exact reason he had come, but he wrote it off as curiosity. The only time he had met his mother was once she had already been turned into something else. Scarlet. 

There was a middle-age woman kneeling in the dirt next door to his old house. Andrew remembered that his father and mother had actually lived next to each other for awhile, and he was hoping to catch a glimpse of her.

"Can I help you with something?" the woman across the street called to him, getting to her feet. 

"Oh- er-" Andrew was caught off guard. He jogged across the street as the woman was brushing the dirt off of her pants. "I was uh... Is Mary Jane home by chance?"

Her brow furrowed, "Mary Jane hasn't visited since she was eleven. She lives with her parents. I'm her aunt. Are you a friend of hers?"

Andrew quickly hid the disappointment in his face. "Yeah, I knew her when I was younger and I was in the neighborhood," he shrugged.

She scrutinized him for a moment, lingering on his eyes for a moment too long for his liking. "Stay put for a moment, let me get you her address."

"Thanks, Ms...?" Andrew trailed off.

"Call me Anna," she yelled to him as she went into her house.

The familiar sound of a skateboard came rolling up from behind him. Andrew scowled, already knowing who it was, and turned to face his teenage father.

"Why are you here? How do you know where I live?" Peter questioned him, picking up his skateboard with one arm and shoving his other hand into his green cargo jacket pocket.

Andrew looked around innocently. "I had no idea you lived here. I was actually here to see an old friend.” He gestured to Anna's house.

Peter seemed to realize that Andrew had not actually been standing in front of his house. "You're an _old_ friend of Mary Jane’s? You realize she hasn't lived here since like the fifth grade, right?"

"Which is why her aunt is giving me her new address," Andrew smirked with a half shrug. "Can you get lost now?"

Andrew didn't want to be cold to his father, but befriending him now could complicate things later.

"I live here," Peter frowned. "What are you playing at?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Andrew answered dismissively.

"First, you said your last name was Osborn, which happens to be my best friend's last name. Then, we come to find your last name is actually _Grimshaw_. Now, you're saying you know Mary Jane. I just find it odd that you're connected to two of my closest friends and I've never even heard of you,” Peter rapid fired.

Andrew stared at him, his mouth set in a hard line. They both turned their heads to the sound of Anna coming back from inside her house, a small piece of paper in her hands. 

"Hello, Peter!" Anna greeted him.

Peter waved to her, shot Andrew a dirty look, and then took off in the other direction on his skateboard.

"Here you are," Anna passed the address over to Andrew. "Say hello to her from me if you can, please."

"Will do. Thanks," Andrew read the address and then let out a low whistle. It would take him several hours to walk there from here, and without using his webbing, he was going to have to take a cab.

"Do you mind if I use your phone?" Andrew asked sheepishly.

The cab got to Andrew within fifteen minutes, but it took another forty minutes to get to Mary Jane's address due to how bad the traffic in the city was. Andrew asked the cab driver to wait for him down the street from the address, and he planned on just walking past the house to get a quick glimpse of her. He briefly wondered if all of this was worth it just to _possibly_ see his actual mother for a few seconds.

Right away, Andrew could tell this was a low-income suburb. Just from the spot he was standing in, he saw several houses with broken windows, most of the lawns were overgrown, and garbage littered the yards.

His feet carried him to the sidewalk in front of her house. He held the piece of paper with Mary Jane's address written on it. There were a couple people inside that he could see; he assumed they were Mary Jane's parents. His grandparents.

Absentmindedly he began picking at the cuff of his sleeve. His stomach felt like it was doing flips. Would he recognize her? How much was she like Scarlet? What would he even say to her? He knew he couldn't reveal who he was, which left no opportunity for him to tell her exactly how he knew her.

The voices in the house got louder. He could make out two female voices and one male. They didn't sound very happy. Suddenly, the front door swung open and a petite girl with stunning red hair walked swiftly down the steps. He knew who she was instantly.

Mary Jane paused about three feet in front of Andrew, her wet eyes looking at him with confusion. He must have startled her because she was staring at the ground while she was walking up until this point.

"P-Peter?" she asked him with uncertainly, quickly trying to hide any evidence that she had been crying. Andrew opened his mouth and closed it, once again caught off guard today.

When Mary Jane caught her mistake, she blushed. "Sorry, you look eerily similar to my friend. I haven't seen him in like seven years though."

"No big deal," he replied, smiling. "I was just taking a walk and I heard shouting, but that's when you came outside and here we are now," he stammered, cursing himself for rambling on like his father seemed to be prone to do. “I’m Andrew.”

"Okay," she said indifferently. "I'm Mary Jane. Sorry I almost bumped into you."

"Like I said, no big deal," he grinned. 

Raindrops began to fall and Mary Jane pulled the hood to her faux leather jacket over her head. "I have to get going, I'm meeting a friend. Maybe we'll see each other again," Mary Jane lifted a hand to wave as she walked away.

"Hopefully," Andrew replied, watching his mother walking away, knowing that the next time he saw her could be when they were planning on capturing Stryker.

Violet was asleep by the time Andrew made his way back to the guest house. Without waking her, he let himself slump onto the couch, and went to bed with a content smile on his face.

Morning came sooner than expected, and Andrew soon found himself shaken awake by his sister.

"Andrew? Andrew....Andrew!" Violet shook him.

"What??" Andrew grumbled, turning around so his back was facing her. "I'm sleeping, leave me alone."

Violet sighed loudly, "I'm going out for breakfast, do you want anything?"

"No," he said in a clipped tone, wanting to go back to sleep.

"Alright, well I'm going to the library afterwards."

Andrew turned back to face her, “But it's Saturday."

"And?" Violet shook her head, but laughed as Andrew plopped his face back on the pillow and shut his eyes. "I'll be back in a bit." 

An hour or so passed and Andrew finally woke up to his stomach growling. He checked the time and saw that it was nearly ten. Wishing he had asked Violet to pick him up something, he dug in his backpack hoping he would find a granola bar or something. Digging all the way to the bottom of the bag, Andrew paused and pulled out his hand, taking the black lightweight cube with it.

A pang of sadness filled him as he looked at the cube that Kitty had died for in order to get it to them. Harry and Felicia had also been killed moments before they got sent here. Violet and Andrew had to leave their father and Normie there with Scarlet... he wondered what had happened after they left. They hadn't done anything yet that would change the future, so his father and half-brother were most likely still stuck there with her. Kitty had said time would pass differently while they were on the other timeline though, one day here would really be like one second back home. They had been here for like ten days.

Andrew began twirling the little black cube in his hand. That's when he noticed the bottom of the cube had a slight indentation. He held the cube close to his face and saw something that looked like a battery cover, about an inch long. Using his nail, the cover pulled up and revealed a small blue button. Kitty hadn't mentioned anything about this. She had said that whatever time they were sent to, they couldn't go back or forward without coming home first. Curiosity got the better of him, and he quickly pushed down on the button, releasing it a second later, but only because of what happened.

The second he pressed the button, everything around him began to blur. The room and the furniture remained the same, but something was different. He placed the cube down on the table just as Violet came walking through the door.

"Are you just now getting up?" she playfully scolded him, tossing him a paper bag. "Here, I knew you'd be hungry."

Andrew caught the bag and peered inside, momentarily forgetting about the cube and delighted to find a couple pieces of raisin bread. "Ten isn't that late. Thanks, Vi," he shoved a piece of the bread into his mouth and sat on the couch.

"Ten?" she huffed. "It's nearly three in the afternoon."

"What?" Andrew's face went blank. "I just checked, it was nearly ten."

"Mm...no. It's three," Violet corrected him.

Andrew jumped up from the couch and grabbed the cube. "Vi! That's it! I knew something was different, the light from outside was coming in at a different angle."

Violet raised an eyebrow at him, “What are you talking about? Why do you have the cube out?"

"Look," he turned the cube upside down and opened up the small cover again, showing her the blue button. "When I woke up it was not even ten yet. I was playing with the cube and I found this. When I pressed the blue button, the room blurred, but it felt like only a second, and suddenly it's three in the afternoon!"

"I thought Kitty said once we traveled to a new time, we couldn't go back or jump forward unless we went back to the original time first?" Violet questioned.

Andrew shrugged, “Well it worked. Kind of sucks that Kitty didn't tell us about that detail to begin with. We've been stuck here for nearly two weeks."

"Maybe she didn't even know," Violet went to grab the cube, "or maybe she thought it was already risky to go back in time." Andrew held the cube out of her reach but she webbed it and it shot right into her palm.

"Risky?" Andrew huffed, “ _Anything_ is better than that future."

Violet studied the cube for a moment. "Let's test it again, together this time. You said you pressed it for a second and about five hours passed?"

Andrew nodded, "yeah."

"Okay, so let's try to travel to Monday morning before school. That's approximately... thirty-five hours from now. I'll hold the button for seven seconds, you hold the cube too," she took Andrew's hand and placed it on the cube. 

"Monday?" Andrew complained. "Why would you want to travel to the worst day of the week?"

"Because I want to see exactly how this works for myself. If I trust it, then we can use it to travel to the time Stryker comes here, otherwise I don't want to have to miss school."

"Just press the button," he grumbled. Sometimes his sister's priorities perplexed him.

Without another word, Violet pressed down on the blue button. The room began to blur again, and Andrew watched as the seconds passed and the lighting in the room quickly darkened and brightened twice in a row. As soon as it started, the room stopped moving and Violet set the cube down on the table.

"It's nearly seven and it's Monday," Violet checked the alarm clock on the mahogany table on the far side of the room.

"Great, just in time for us to leave for school," Andrew replied sarcastically.

"Let's get going then, since it will probably be our last day attending," Violet playfully nudged him and whirled around to grab her bag. Although there was a smile on her face, it didn't reach her eyes. Andrew deduced she was happy that they wouldn't exactly be stuck her for the next two years, but he knew that she was also excited about getting another chance to go to high school.

XXX

Peter was not having a great day today. He should have known it was going to be one of those days when he poured a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios and then went to grab the milk only to realize there was barely even a sip left in the gallon. Hitting the snooze button was definitely a mistake this morning, because now he had no time to make an actual breakfast. He said bye to his aunt and uncle, and headed off to school.

Just as he pushed the front doors to the school open, he realized he had a few minutes left to get to his first class. He heard footsteps behind him and held the door open, only to find that it was none other than the "Grimshaw Twins" behind him. Violet gave him a smile as she passed him, while Andrew raised a challenging eyebrow, almost daring him to say something about their previous encounter. When Peter said nothing, Andrew gave a quiet 'thanks' and caught up with his sister.

He managed to avoid Flash for the first half of the day, that is until a basketball slammed into the side of his head. Looking towards the sound of laughter, he saw Flash with two of his goons at his side.

"Sorry," Flash called out, trying to hold in his laughter.

"Morning, Flash," Peter replied as he shut the glass that covered the hallway bulletin board. It was better to pretend nothing had happened, which usually caused Flash to get bored and go bother someone else.

On his way to lunch, Peter was stopped by a pretty girl he recognized as Erin, one of the girls that Gwen would sometimes chat with in the hallways. For a moment, he thought the girl was asking him out on some kind of date on Friday, only to find that she wanted him to take pictures of her boyfriend's car. The two girls behind Erin giggled, obviously knowing Peter had gotten the wrong idea. He hurriedly skated off, only to get scolded by one of the teachers for using his skateboard in the hallway.

Before Peter even touched the door handle to go outside for lunch, he thought he had heard chanting. As he opened up the door, camera in one hand, he couldn't believe what he saw. Flash was holding a freshman named Gordon up by his legs and shoving his face into a plate full of food. A crowd of students had gathered around Flash and Gordon, shouting "Eat it! Eat it! Eat it!"

Peter dropped his jaw in disbelief. Not a single person was defending Gordon or even trying to get Flash to stop. He made his way through the crowd of laughing students when Flash noticed him.

"Hey Parker, come on get a picture, come on!" Flash playfully called out to him, holding up the freshman who now had food dripping from his face. Peter refused to take a picture and quietly told Flash to leave the kid alone. "Take the picture, Parker," Flash commanded.

The two went back and forth for a moment before Peter got tired of it. “Put him down, Eugene!" Peter knew he made a mistake; nobody was allowed to call Flash by his actual name without some kind of retribution. Flash dropped Gordon onto the ground and went towards Peter instead.

Peter went to see if the kid was alright, just as Flash grabbed him and punched him straight across the jaw. Peter went to get up only to receive another throw from Flash straight to his stomach, followed by a hard kick in the same spot.

"Still not taking the picture," Peter managed to huff out before Gwen made her way through the crowd. He didn't hear everything Gwen had said to Flash, but the and the crowd quickly dispersed.

That was what he got for trying to do the right thing.

"You alright?" Peter looked up and Andrew was suddenly standing in front of him. A quick glance around and Peter saw Violet wasn't with him.

"Yeah, yeah," Peter held his stomach with one hand and wiped off the blood from his face with the other.

Andrew held his arm out to help Peter up. "Here.” He nodded at his hand, silently telling Peter to take it. "That guy is a jerk."

Peter looked up at him suspiciously for a second, but took his hand as he helped him get to his feet. "Thanks," he said as he dusted himself off.

"I don't think it's broken," Andrew said as he picked up Peter's camera from the ground. "Might need to be looked at, but it should still work."

"Man..." Peter looked sadly at his camera as it was handed it over to him.

He glanced between his camera and Andrew, who was helping Gordon get to his feet as well. He handed the freshman some napkins from another table, who smiled and said thanks. The kid gathered his books and left towards the school. Andrew had folded his arms together and seemed to be studying Peter.

"We should probably get back inside, our Biology class starts in a few minutes," Andrew finally said. Peter nodded, and followed him as he headed back towards the school. He swore he was imagining it, but it was as if the kid held a protective stance as they walked, keeping an eye on Peter and checking to make sure Flash wasn't coming back around.  
Andrew reached into his pocket and pulled out two cookies, biting into one and held the other one towards Peter, silently asking if he wanted it. He thanked Andrew and pocketed the dessert to save it for later.

"I think we got off on the wrong foot," Peter said suddenly as they were nearing their next class. He paused near the door and held his hand out. “Sorry for giving you the third degree and all."

Andrew had been the only one other than himself that did anything to help Gordon. There weren’t many people in their school who would stand up to Flash.

Andrew shrugged and shook Peter's hand. "No big deal," he replied. The bell was about to ring so both boys made their way into the classroom.

Peter's day started to get better during Biology. Gwen Stacy spoke to him for the first time, which had left him speechless at first. She had thought Peter standing up to Flash was brave, but stupid. Peter was now sporting a bruised face and no doubt bruising across his abdomen, but it saved the younger kid from further humiliation from Flash, which was worth it to Peter.

Class ended and Peter watched as Gwen quickly gathered her belongings and raced out the door, Andrew wasn't too far behind her. Peter suddenly got an idea and sped out the door.

"Hey- uh- Andrew!" Peter called out to his taller classmate. Andrew turned around when he heard his name and looked expectantly at him.

"Yeah?"

Peter ran his hand through his hair; he wasn't that good at making friends. "If you uh, wanted to, after school would you maybe want to go skateboarding? I mean if you don't have anything else planned. Your sister could come too of course, she's invited also, if you wanted to go that is.”

Andrew furrowed his brow, as if contemplating Peter's question. His eyes narrowed and the way he was looking at Peter it was as if he was searching for something that wasn't there.

"Sure," his expression softened. "I'll talk to my sister when I see her."

"Alright, cool," Peter smiled. He hoped he hadn't annoyed the kid already. "I'll come find you guys after last period."

"Hey Parker!" Peter and Andrew both turned to see Flash passing by them. "Nice face!"

"Yeah, yeah..." Peter awkwardly answered back.

Andrew scowled and walked away without another word to Peter, same direction as Flash. Just as Flash was about to turn the corner, his body unexpectedly flew forward as if someone had tripped him. Nobody had been near enough to trip him, but Peter could have sworn he saw some kind of white rope shoot forward just as Andrew has been passing him. It was gone as quick as he saw it, so he figured he imagined it.

Flash jumped to his feet quickly. "What!?" he growled in Andrew's direction as the taller of the two was smirking back at him. Andrew simply shrugged and continued on his way as Flash held his elbow, anxiously glancing around him to see if anybody else had seen his fall. His eyes landed on Peter, being the only one left in the hall with him, and he slightly shook his head, almost daring him to say something. Peter looked down quickly, hiding his smile, as Flash stormed off.

The last bell of the day rung and Peter stuffed some of his school books into his locker before heading towards the front of the school. He leaned himself up against a wall, skateboard under his arm, and waited. Remembering the cookie Andrew had given him, he unwrapped it and began to eat it. The last of the students were leaving the school and Peter waited another five minutes. No sign of Andrew or his sister.

Peter left on his board, not admitting to himself that he was slightly disappointed, and figured he'd go to the secluded warehouse to skate a bit before going home to get an early start on the English essay.

It had only been a couple blocks away from the school when he saw he nearly caught up to the twins. They were hastily walking down the sidewalk before turning into an alley that Peter knew to be a dead end, and also a common place for drug deals. He didn't mean to spy on them, but impulsively picked up his skateboard and dashed over to the side of the building next to the alley.

Neither of them noticed him as he barely peeked around the corner, noting nobody else had been waiting for them. He couldn't make sense of exactly what they were saying, but some things slipped through as they conversed.

"...about 4.8 seconds is one day," Andrew seemed to inform Violet. 

Violet had pulled something from her bag. 

"...need to go like two _years_..." Andrew sighed.

"...try for 690 days," Violet paused, "...don't want to jump..."

“55 minutes and 12 seconds," Andrew had replied, taking out what Peter assumed was a cell phone, "I'll time it."

None of this was making any sense to Peter.

Both of them were now holding the object that Violet had taken out of her bag. Peter had a better view of it now, a palm-sized black cube. They were talking in such low voices he couldn't make out what they were saying at this point.

Then they both vanished into thin air.


	6. Chapter 6

"Absolutely not!" Violet hissed in a stern voice, making sure only Andrew heard her.

"Come on Vi, it could be fun," Andrew grinned despite his sister rubbing her temple in frustration. "You're just scared because it's something you've never done before."

Violet smacked Andrew's arm, "I'm not _scared_ to go skateboarding! I'm more worried about us messing up the timeline so bad that Dad and Mom never get together! We would be wiped from existence. This is... this is stupid and foolish."

Andrew snorted, “you think they won’t get together because we hang out with him for an hour after school?"

"I don't know!" she replied. "Look, let's just get to the time we need to be at,” Violet pulled Andrew down the hall.

Peter was waiting near the front doors of the school, so she ushered Andrew out a different exit.

"He seems... lonely," Andrew said, concerned. "I don't think he has many friends."

"It gets better for him,” Violet answered in a dismissive tone. Then, softer, she added, “he'll have Gwen, Harry, and Mary Jane in his life."

"Yeah, because that all works out in the end," he snapped. Violet winced at his tone but said nothing.

Once out of the school, the path to the Osborn Mansion was to the left, so they took a right.

"Here looks good," Violet nodded at an empty alleyway.

Andrew looked around doubtfully. There were no windows on either side, and at the end of the alley there was a tall wooden fence completely blocking off the exit. Even in the daylight hours, it was dark and grimy.

"It smells like piss,” Andrew crossed his arms over his chest. "Why can't we just go back to the guest house?"

"It takes nearly an hour to walk there from here and I'd rather get on with this. The sooner we get this done, the better. For everyone.” Violet said.

"Okay, okay," Andrew raised his hands in a mockingly placating way. "So we have to figure about 4.8 seconds is one day..." Andrew stroked his chin in thought while Violet took the black cube out of her school bag. "We're going to need to go like two _years_ forward," he sighed.

Violet nodded. “Two years would be 730 days, but we should try for 690 days..." she paused, “we don't want to jump too far ahead and miss our chance."

Andrew turned on his cell phone to quickly calculate how long they would need to hold down the time jump button. "55 minutes and 12 seconds," he then proceeded to click on the stop watch app, "I'll time it."

Violet held the black cube between the two of them, the bottom already open and exposing the newfound button. Andrew grabbed onto the cube with one hand and held his phone with the other.

"We're going to have to stand here holding this thing for nearly an hour. Are you ready?" Andrew asked.

“Of course I am," Violet answered, determined. Her finger hovered over the blue button for a moment.

"I'll tell you when to let go," he told her, "press it!"

The world around them blurred quickly. Colors flashed from light to dark so quickly it seemed like a slow strobe light effect. 

Not moving was getting annoying, but Andrew held the cube with Violet, counting down the time. Ironically, it seemed like the minutes took hours. He looked over at his sister for a moment, who had her eyes clenched shut to block out the intense nauseating feeling he was sure she was experiencing too. Glancing at his phone, Andrew saw that they had hit 26 minutes. He wasn’t sure whether letting Violet know about how much time was left was a good or bad idea. In the end, he decided against it; he didn't want to risk getting sick if he opened his mouth now. They had lasted this long; only halfway to go.

Out of nowhere, what could only be explained in that moment as a small explosion happened directly between Andrew and Violet. One moment, he had been looking at his phone, and the next, he had been sent flying across the alley, upwards into a brick wall, and crashing to the ground. He instantly felt a warmness on the back of his head. When he felt the spot, he felt a sticky substance; he was bleeding. Looking up quickly, he tried adjusting his eyes to the gloom, looking for his sister.

Andrew shakily got to his feet and an indistinct blur flashed past him. Before he could even try to register what happened, another blur flashed in front of him, albeit slightly slower than the former.

"What...happened?" Violet asked in a hoarse voice. 

Andrew ran to her and helped her up off the ground.

"Are you okay? Are you bleeding?" he questioned as his eyes scanned her for injuries. Violet dusted herself off and turned her arm to reveal a bad scrape.

"I'm fine. This will heal in no time,” she smiled and then frowned just as quickly. Her eyes focused on the ground and went wide. "What happened!?”

Andrew turned and saw exactly what she was looking at.

The black cube was in pieces scattered across the alley.

"No..." Andrew looked back at Violet, their eyes a matching set of shock and horror. He dropped to his knees and frantically began scooping up the pieces to the cube.

"It doesn't look like we're going to be able to fix that," Violet said in a small voice.

He didn't answer her until all the pieces had been picked up. 

"Maybe we can figure something out,” he said, “maybe... maybe we can fix it. We don't know yet."

Violet grabbed one of the chunks in his hands, "look at it Andrew, the pieces are melted,” she dropped it back in his hands.

"What the hell are we going to do now? Are we stuck here? Are- oh great!" Andrew bent down and picked up his cell phone, screen and everything else cracked and unresponsive. "Dammit!" he flung the broken phone against the brick wall, shattering it completely.

"I know this is bad," Violet started, "but we need to keep calm and remember the reason we're here, okay?"

Andrew shoved the broken pieces into Violet's bag.

"We have nothing here, Vi! No friends, no family, no home, we don't even have real identities! What are we supposed to do?" he raked a hand through his hair in frustration. 

"First, we stick with the plan. Let's figure out when we are and then we can go from there," Violet said, "Andrew, come on."

Andrew scowled, reluctantly following her.

It had only been two blocks before they reached a newspaper stand. The newspaper stand worker seemed to be adamantly discussing something with an older couple. Violet looked around quickly making sure nobody was watching, and flung out a small strand of webbing to the nearest paper.

"Check this out," Violet said as she passed the newspaper to Andrew. 

'Electro defeated by Spider-Man!' the front page read in bold print. There was a picture with an electric-blue man on one side and Spider-Man with a fire hydrant lassoed to his webbing on the other.

"Great," Andrew passed the newspaper back to Violet.

"It's only been about a year," Violet put her hand to her chin as she stared at the picture, "what are we going to do for a year?"

"A year?" Andrew scoffed, "what are we going to do _period_?"

"Hey kid, you gonna pay for that?" 

Violet looked over at the newspaper man who was waiting expectantly.

"Oh, uh, sorry about that,” she laughed nervously and picked off any remaining webbing from the paper before setting it back on the stand.

"Should we check and see if Harry's guest house is still empty?" Andrew asked as Violet pulled him away from the glaring newspaper man.

"I don't know," said Violet, biting her lip, "that may be our only option right now."

"We should also check and make sure everything is going smoothly with the others,” said Andrew, “you know, Dad, Mom, Harry, Gwen..."

Violet continued walking silently next to Andrew, apparently lost in thought. "We're going to need to be able to get ahold of each other this time," she said.

"Right," Andrew agreed, “but seeing as neither of us have phones or money, I'm not sure what you want us to do."

Violet stopped. 

"What?" Andrew asked.

She nodded her head in the direction of two older men who were standing next to each other in front of a pawn shop. The taller of the two passed a small bag of some kind of white powder to the shorter man, in exchange for a wad of cash. They quickly parted ways and the taller man headed towards them.

Violet didn't have to say anything for Andrew to understand what she meant. 

"I've got this," Andrew said in a low voice to her as the taller man walked past them. The man's face had dirt smudges like he hadn't taken a shower in days, and he was wearing a torn grey shirt. "Just wait here, I'll be back in a few."

"Wait," Violet tugged on Andrew's sleeve, "you're always doing the dirty work. I can do it this time."

"Nah, that's what big brothers are for," Andrew grinned.

Violet sniffed derisively. "You're older by two minutes," she said.

"And that's how long it will take me to get that money," he replied before taking off towards the man.

The man hadn't gotten too far ahead. Andrew walked ahead of the man, and turned, blocking his path.

"Move, kid," the man demanded in a croaky voice.

"I don't think so," Andrew grabbed the man's arm, glaring at him. He stood several inches taller than Andrew.

"What the hell do you think-" the man started, but then suddenly cut off.

"You're not going to yell for help. You're not going to attempt to harm me in any way," Andrew said in a hard voice, "you're going to give me the money that the other man just gave to you."

"I am?" asked the man, his voice shook slightly and the color drained from his face.

"Yes. Hand it to me. Now," Andrew commanded.

The man reached into his pocket and pulled out several hundred dollar bills. Andrew took the money with his free hand and stuffed them into his pocket.

"Maybe next time you won't go selling illegal drugs to people in broad daylight,” Andrew said to the man as he released his arm. With a quick glance to make sure nobody had seen their exchange, Andrew walking towards his sister.

"I- I needed that money to buy my family food," the man said in a hollow voice, "my daughters haven't eaten in two days."

Andrew stopped and turned back to the man, frowning. He stared at the man for a moment, before letting out a groan and grabbed the man's arm a second time.

"What's your name?" Andrew asked the man.

"Henry," the man answered quickly.

"Are you telling me the truth, Henry? Were you planning on using that money to buy food for your family?" he pressed.

"Yes. Some of it."

Andrew let out a low growl and pulled out one the bills from his pocket and shoved it into Henry's hand. "Use this. But find another line of work,” he released the man again, causing him to stumble back.

Shaking his head, Andrew ran back to his sister.

"Here," Andrew passed Violet two of the bills and kept one for himself. 

Violet pocketed the money, and mumbled a small "thanks."

"Yeah, so, you want to go run into a place and get us some cheap pay-as-you- what?" Andrew asked suddenly, noticing Violet wasn't paying attention.

"Nothing," said Violet, hastily looking away from the man in the torn grey shirt, who was looking around as if he has no idea where he was. "Before you say anything, yes I was paying attention, and yes I will go buy us the phones."

Andrew nodded slowly, “okay, great."

Violet was back within twenty minutes. She dug around in her bag for a moment and then set the new cell phone into Andrew's hand.

"It's pink," he said, looking down at the phone in his palm.

"Oops," Violet snatched the phone from him and replaced it with a silver one. "I already programmed our numbers into each other's phones on the way here."

"Awesome. Too bad you got us flip phones," he mock sighed before slipping the phone into his pocket.

She rolled her eyes at him, “they were under twenty dollars, so no complaining. Also, it's already five o’clock.”

"We should check on the others before it gets too late," Andrew said as he leaned against a wall.

"Right. How do you want to do this?" Violet asked, slipping the phone into her pocket.

"Well, Mary Jane—er, Mom," Andrew shrugged, "lives pretty far from here. We can always check on her tomorrow. I say we split up and meet back at the guest house tonight."

Violet nodded, "I'll go to the mansion. That way we know the place is still safe and I can find out how he is," she said.

"And I'll go check out our old house," Andrew said, just as Violet pursed her lips. "What?" he questioned.

"Nothing," she shook her head, "see you tonight."

Violet didn't comment any further before she turned around and headed the other direction. Andrew rolled his eyes and departed.

He knew his sister was just bursting to tell him to behave himself, to not "mess up the timeline.” What she didn't understand was that no matter how bad the future could get, it was nothing compared to what they were about to encounter.

Before long, Andrew found himself once again on the sidewalk in front of his old home. His dad’s house. Right now. His great-aunt, who he referred to as 'Aunt May' for her sake, would be living here too at this time. His heart lurched as he realized he would be able to meet Uncle Ben too. He had heard nothing but good stories about his great uncle.

Andrew quickly knocked on the front door before he got cold feet.

“H-hello," a warm, concerned face greeted him. Aunt May, years younger, took a second glance at him, eyebrows pulled together, but quickly smiled at him. "How may I help you?"  
"Hi, I'm Andrew. I'm a friend of Peter’s,” he held out his hand with a genuine smile. He hadn't seen his aunt in such a long time. "Sorry, we haven't met before."  
Aunt May shook his hand, "May."  
"I was supposed to meet Peter today, but he isn't answering his phone.” Andrew took his cell phone out and shrugged a shoulder, the lie easily slipping through his teeth. "Is he home?"

"Yeah, yeah he's here," she pointed towards the garage, "he's doing some kind of experiment. He’s making a lot of noise so it’d probably be best to forego knocking and just go on in,” Aunt May told him, a little bit too much enthusiasm in her voice.

"Thanks," Andrew grinned, "it was nice to meet you."

"You too, dear," she said before closing the door.

Andrew made his way to garage and was about to open the door, but to his surprise there was no sound coming from inside. He knocked quietly with the back of one of his knuckles and called out "Hello.” No answer. 

"Okay?" Andrew opened the garage door and shut it behind him. Peter wasn't inside, but there definitely was some kind of experiment going on. A very familiar strand of webbing was strung from one side of the garage to the other. Andrew picked up a small black device, recognizing it immediately as a web shooter.

"Well, he isn't too careful about hiding this stuff," Andrew muttered to himself.

There were several different types of batteries thrown off to the side on a work bench, all destroyed. The burning acidic smell caused him to crinkle his nose.

A piece of paper with several notes crossed off it it, and some with stars next to them was laying next to one of the batteries. Andrew skimmed through it and pocketed the note, a smile on his face.

Andrew ducked under the webbing and pulled over a lawn chair while he waited. He pulled out his phone to check if Violet had texted him yet, and just as he stuffed the phone back into his pocket the garage door opened.

Peter came in, walking backwards so he could pull the door shut with his foot. Andrew couldn't tell what, but Peter was holding something somewhat large in his arms. His white t-shirt was slightly wet, indicating it had just started to rain outside.

"Hey!" Andrew called out from the lawn chair, his arms crossed.

With an undignified yelp, Peter dropped the car battery from his arms, but quickly grabbed it again before it hit the ground.

"Wha- who- what are you doing in here!?" Peter turned around, confused and angry, "wait... Andrew??"

"Yup,” Andrew smiled as he sat up from the chair. "What's with the battery?" he nodded towards the car battery in Peter's arms.

"That's- why are- how did-" Peter sputtered as he set the car battery down on the workbench, along with a bag with something dark sticking out of it. "How did you get in here?"  
"I opened the door."

Peter scowled. “But why? Why are you here? Don't you know anything about privacy?"

"Your aunt told me to come wait for you in here," Andrew shrugged, lifting an eyebrow as he once again eyed the dead batteries on the table.

Peter's eyes opened wide as he realized everything that was in front of him. He quickly picked up a sheet off the ground, that looked as though it was used to cover floors while the walls were getting painted, and threw it over the strand of webbing.

"I'm just experimenting- testing these cables- just a stupid project for- scientific reasons-" Peter began babbling again as he worked to cover up any evidence he thought could incriminate him. 

Andrew noticed for the first time that his father's hair wasn't quite as shaggy as he remembered it. He also had a new kind of sadness to him, one that Andrew couldn't figure out just yet.

"You want any help?" Andrew pointed towards the car battery, "my sister is the smart one, but I might be able to help."

Some memory seemed to dawn on Peter's face, "it's been a year. Where have you two been? Did you just stop going to school?"

"We had some family trouble," Andrew answered.

"But, you're here now?" Peter narrowed his eyes, "did everything get sorted out?"

"Not really," Andrew replied. "My sister and I, we're not actually sure what we're doing right now," he laughed.

Peter looked like he wanted to ask him what he meant by that, but shook his head instead. "This... project I'm doing. I'm attempting to help a friend."

"Okay," Andrew waited for him to continue.

"You've heard of Spider-Man I'm assuming?"

"Yeah?" Andrew raised an eyebrow.

Peter took the sheet off the webbing. "I'm kind of his official unofficial photographer. I get paid to take pictures of him in action," Peter explained. "Anyway, he is having trouble with this particular guy, and I'm trying to find him a way to take the guy down without getting his web shooters electrocuted."

Peter picked up one of the electrified web shooters and tossed it to Andrew.

Andrew eyed the object in his hand before placing it back on the workbench, "Shit."

"Right. Anyway, I'm hoping I can somehow get this car battery to work. Bigger battery and all."

Andrew contemplated that for a moment, "I don't think that's going to work how you want it to."

"Oh yeah? Why's that?" Peter smiled, humoring him.

"Have you tried anything else?" Andrew asked.

"Yes. I've tried nearly every kind of battery, except this one,” Peter gestured towards the car battery, “rubber, plastics, everything."

Andrew stood up and pulled back on the web strand a little before letting it go, "have you tried magnetizing them at all?"

"Um, well no, I haven't tried that," Peter bit his bottom lip, "but, I really think this will work."

"Go on then, let's see," Andrew sat back in the lawn chair, smiling.

Peter grabbed the bag from off the workbench and pulled out a wetsuit. 

"Whoa, dude, uh-" Andrew started as Peter began removing his pants.

Peter rolled his eyes. "Calm down I have boxers on," he said, and Andrew visibly relaxed as Peter began climbing into the wetsuit.

"Going scuba diving?" Andrew laughed as Peter put the scuba mask over his face.

"Just being careful," Peter huffed, grabbing the jumper cables.

"It's not going to work,” Andrew crossed his arms as he made himself comfortable in the chair, "but have at it." 

The second Peter clamped the charger onto the webbing, the electricity sent him flying backwards. Andrew instinctively flung his arm out, making sure Peter didn't hit the wall.  
"Thanks- oh crap!" Peter jumped up as the webbing and car battery burst into flames. Andrew passed him the fire extinguisher and he quickly fixed the situation at hand. 

 

With a loud sigh, Peter plopped himself onto the floor, tossing the extinguisher into a pile of old tools. 

"I'm hungry," Andrew said, somewhat awkwardly, trying to lighten the mood. 

Peter perked up at that. "If you're hungry, we have fajitas,” he jumped up from the floor, tossing the scuba mask to the side.

"Hell yeah I'll have some fajitas," Andrew rubbed his hands together; he was never one to deny free food.

"Great. My aunt will be happy," Peter laughed, pulling the wetsuit off and dressing himself.

Andrew gave a doubtful laugh. "Oh yeah, why's that?" he asked.

"She uh... she just likes visitors is all," Peter said, not really looking at Andrew. "Well, let's go,” Peter nodded towards the garage door.

Andrew didn't need to be told twice.


	7. Chapter 7

Just as Peter said, Aunt May seemed pleased to have someone else to cook for. A grin had appeared on her face the moment he’d mentioned that Andrew was going to be staying for dinner. 

"So, you said you were a friend from school?" Aunt May asked Andrew as she set down their plates of food.

Andrew's eyes darted over to Peter for a moment. “Friend” was a strong word in his opinion, but he wanted to gauge Peter’s reaction before he corrected her.

"Yeah, I knew him from school. We had a couple classes together," he answered.

"How come you've never mentioned him?" Aunt May pressed as she looked at Peter, whose mouth was stuffed with food.

Peter swallowed quickly. "He was only there for a couple weeks," he replied, somewhat defensively. Andrew nodded in confirmation.

"What school did you move to?" Aunt May asked. Peter looked towards Andrew curiously. 

Andrew decided to try to be as truthful as possible. "I- _we_ \- didn't go back. My sister and I," Andrew explained, "kind of got pulled out of school due to a family emergency. We haven't had the time to go back and I'm not sure if that will be possible anytime soon."

"Oh," Aunt May said, surprise evident on her face, "well, I hope everything works out for you and your family. Do they live close by?" she asked conversationally.

Andrew once again quickly looked at Peter before answering. “They uh- they're all gone now. It's just my sister and I."

"Just the two of you? How are you afford-" Aunt May cut herself off. “That's very independent of the both of you."

Peter's expression changed to mock betrayal, "I'm an independent person," he mumbled as he shoved the last bit of food into his mouth.

"Yes, yes. Of course you are," she replied absently.

“We’ve had to be.” Andrew shrugged and finished his last bite. He knew that Aunt May wasn't trying to be nosy, she was just a caring person. "Thanks for dinner. It was really good."

"Thank you, Andrew.” Aunt May got up and started taking their plates.

"Hey, I can do the dishes," Peter said.

Aunt May playfully smacked his hand with a dish rag as he went to pick up his plate. "Nonsense, you have a guest over," she smiled.

Peter got up from the table, Andrew copying him a moment later.

"Are you two going anywhere, Peter?" Aunt May asked as she began filling up the dishwasher. 

"Oh- um- I don't think-" he stammered.

"We never did get to go skateboarding that one day," Andrew pointed out.

Peter furrowed his brow, slightly narrowing his eyes as if he was remembering something that bothered him. Andrew brushed it off as Peter must have been annoyed that he had been ditched that one day.

"Yeah, wow, nearly a year ago..." Peter huffed and ran a hand through his hair.

Andrew began to fidget with the phone in his pocket, feeling like he may have been a little too forward with them. They were his family and he grew up with them, but _they_ didn't know _him_ yet. It was just too interesting getting to know his father in this time, before he’d been weathered by so much tragedy.

“Tonight's probably not a good night, but uh," Peter took out his cell phone, "just shoot me a text when you're not busy this week. What's your number?"

Andrew proceeded to pull out his cell too. "I actually have no idea.” He shrugged as Peter gave him a questioning look. “New phone."

"Oh, well, here," Peter gestured for Andrew's phone, "I'll just put my number into your's then."

"Cool," Andrew nodded as Peter passed his phone back to him. “Thanks again for the food," he called to Aunt May.

Just before he put the phone in his pocket, he saw Violet had texted him: **"At the mansion, the guest house should be fine."**

"You're welcome. Hopefully I get to see more of you," she smiled warmly at Andrew.

Andrew gave a small wave to the both of them. As he shut the door behind him, a gush of wind behind him caused him to sway on his feet for a moment. He turned around, ready to walk down the steps and start his next task, when he stepped on something that crinkled. When he looked under his shoe, he saw that it was just an empty pop tart wrapper.

XXX

Violet was happy to see that the guest house at the Osborn mansion was still being unused, and that she still had the spare key on her. She opened the door and went inside. Any of their belongings they had forgotten the day they time jumped forward were gone. She expected no less. 

They were going to have to go shopping soon. 

Just as Violet was about to text her brother that staying in the guest house was still the plan, a shadow passed by one of the windows. Violet inhaled sharply and ran up to the window, just barely parting the blinds to see.

A woman with a black backpack was stealthily making her way up to the back of the mansion. She stopped at a lower window and tried opening it, but to no avail. She tried several more windows and finally found one that opened. The woman in all black took one last look around and slipped through into the house.

Violet bit her bottom lip. She knew she should check out what this woman was up to. It just struck her as odd that the woman didn't want to break any of the windows; there was nobody else here to hear her. Then again, she didn't want to jeopardize their place to stay at for the time.

With a loud exhale, Violet decided she was going to follow the woman.

The window was left open, so Violet slid inside, landing quietly on her feet. She half smiled as she looked around; her family had lived in this house for nearly a year. Harry Osborn had left nearly everything to her father in his will, this mansion included. For that one short year, they had been a family: her, her father, Andrew and their half-brother Normie, Harry and Felicia.

It had not been easy living there at first. Peter and Felicia bickered with each other _constantly_ , though that was the least of their worries. Everyone had to deal with the things they had done while on Stryker's island. Harry has been the worst of all of them: waking up in the middle of the night, his yelling reaching all ends of the mansion. Andrew, too, was sometimes inconsolable. Violet tried her best to help both her brother and father get through the hard times, and Felicia and Peter would help Harry. 

Except when _he_ didn't want to be helped, that is.

Every now and then, the Goblin would make an appearance. Although 'fond' wouldn't be the correct term, the Goblin no longer tried to harm any of them. However, that didn't stop him from trying to leave to cause mayhem and “have fun.” Eventually, it was easier to tell when the Goblin was going to slip out, and Harry allowed Peter to put him on 'lockdown' for the day or two he wasn’t in control. The Goblin would yell and threaten Peter, but he had never once hurt him since their time on the island. _'For Osborn's sake'_ he would tell them.

Because Harry Osborn was legally dead, it was hard for him to do practically anything in that city. They had spent that first year making sure everyone in their makeshift family was mentally, emotionally, and physically okay. When it was time, they moved to Toronto, Canada. Harry was able to freely move throughout the city without worry, and with a sincere promise from the Goblin, he too was able to leave freely.

The crime rate in Toronto was relatively low, which suited Peter and his family just fine. When Violet and Andrew turned thirteen, Peter allowed them to come out with him to scout the city, which grew to love their new super heroes. When they turned fifteen, they were able to scout by themselves. The five years in Canada were enjoyable for all of them. It was just after their sixteenth birthday that mutants and other super humans began disappearing...

Violet shook her head, ridding herself of that memory. Now wasn’t the time to think of such things.

The hallway she was in led to what would later have been Andrew's bedroom. She headed that way until a sound in the other direction stopped her. Violet followed the noise, and paused when she got to a door that was slightly ajar. There was no way to see inside from this end, so she quietly made her way to the other side of the large room through the hallway. The other side of the room simply had an opening, which allowed Violet to peer around the wall in order to see inside.

There was a long table in the middle of the room. The intruder had her back turned towards Violet and her bag was set on top of the table. The woman pulled the hood down from her head, revealing black hair that matched her outfit. Violet waited.

What happened next surprised Violet. Instead of _stealing_ something, the woman took out two large bottles out of her bag and set them in the middle of the table. She seemed to scrutinize them for a moment, and then slid one of the bottles over just an inch. Next, she walked over to an elegantly designed bureau and pulled out a piece of paper and a pen. She seemed to know her way around.

When the woman turned back towards the table, Violet got a quick look at her face.

_Felicia Hardy._

Felicia Hardy, who was nearly twenty years younger than the last time Violet had seen her. She looked to be in her early twenties.

Violet gasped and pulled her head back from the door opening.

Crap. She had to have heard me, Violet thought.

She waited another moment before peeking around the corner again. Felicia was gone.

Curious, Violet walked up to the table. The glass bottles were identical, with labels that read, _Johnnie Walker Blue Label Blended Scotch Whiskey_. The piece of paper had just one word written on it: Harry.

She smiled and shook her head. She had snuck in after Felicia thinking that she was there to rob the place, but instead she had left a gift. It still struck her as odd that Felicia snuck in instead of just giving the bottles to Harry in the first place.

Oh well. She sent a quick text to her brother, informing him that they should be able to stay in the guest house. 

Someone cleared their throat behind Violet and she froze.

"Are you here to rob me?" the person asked calmly.

Violet spun around and Harry Osborn was standing in the open doorway, an eyebrow raised in curiosity.

"What?” she asked in a high-pitched tone. Exactly _how_ did she not hear him come in!

Harry smirked. “Because if you are, you're going to be pretty disappointed. I don't keep any of my money here. Although, take any painting you want. I'm sure the cheapest one will catch you a couple grand."

Violet stared at him with wide eyes as he casually walked around her and pulled out a chair as if he were going to sit down. Instead, his hand reached forward and grabbed the paper. He set it down just as quickly.

"Those from you?" Harry gestured to the bottles as he walked over to the bureau and grabbed two empty glasses.

"N-no," Violet replied. Harry once again gave her a curious look as he opened up one of the bottles. She contemplated just leaving. Just turning around without another word and booking it out of there.

"Hm," Harry said nothing as he quickly knocked back a small glass he poured himself. "Want one?" he asked her.

She shook her head. Harry bit his lip and sat down on the chair he previously pulled out. He angled the chair so he was facing her. Violet took a step back. Harry narrowed his eyes as he looked thoughtfully at her, drumming his fingers on the side of his glass.

"I didn't break in to steal from you.” 

Harry smirked, “But you did break in?”

"No, I-" Violet exhaled loudly. "I thought someone else was breaking in. They came in through a window, so I followed them. But, it turns out they were just leaving those.” She pointed to the bottles of scotch on the table.

Harry nodded, but kept that smirk on his face, which made Violet feel as if he was just humoring her.

"So you just happened to see someone climbing in the window and decided that _you_ were going to be able to stop them?" He laughed, finishing his second glass. Violet noted his teeth were now perfect and straight, no longer sharp and deadly. His hand was also shaking slightly as he drank.

"I-" She had no idea what to say, so she changed the subject instead. “How come you haven't called the police yet?"

"I recently got some bad news, which is catching up to me,” he set the glass down on the table and folded his hands in his lap, “and I don't feel like dealing with that right now." 

Violet frowned but said nothing.

"Looks like you caught me on the right day," he said through a tight-lipped smile.

"I'm... sorry," Violet started towards the door. "I'm going to go now."

Harry held his hand out towards the door. “By all means," he said, and poured himself another drink.

Violet stopped walking when she got to the doorway and took a look behind her. Harry had his head held in his hands, and was staring down at his now empty glass.

The first time she had ever met the person in front of her was in a burning building when she was ten. His plan had been to murder them to hurt their father. It had actually been the _Goblin_ , not Harry Osborn, she found out later. And now, he was part of their family.

The person in front of her was not _their_ Harry, but he would be in time. He was still Harry though, and he was in pain.

"Are you okay?" Violet asked. She knew she shouldn't be here right now, interacting with the people in their lives like this. She should leave. Right now.

Harry looked up, giving her an incredulous look. He looked like he was about to say something snarky, but then changed his mind.

"No," he murmured, "I'm not."

Violet shut the door.


	8. Chapter 8

Night spread quickly, and the streets were now illuminated from the many skyscrapers in the city. Andrew was walking aimlessly through the streets, taking in the place that he had once called home.

It had been refreshing being able to spend time with Aunt May again; she was just such a compassionate person that you couldn't help but love being around her. It wasn't fair what would happen to her later in life.

The streets were getting more crowded and Andrew found himself on an entire strip full of small walk-in diners and restaurants.

"Free sample?"

Andrew looked up and saw an older woman wearing a white apron, holding a tray of meatballs. She was holding a meatball skewered by a toothpick out to him.

"Definitely.” He took the meatball from her. "Damn, that was good," he told her as he tossed the toothpick in the trash next to them. “Thanks."

"Go on in! Go buy some!" she gestured to the Korean BBQ & Grill.

Andrew paused for a moment, double checking if his sister had texted him again, before going inside. 

The restaurant only had four tables. Only one of the tables was taken, the occupants being two girls who looked around his age. Andrew bought a small bowl of the meatballs, grumbling at the price, and took a seat at the table in the corner. 

The two girls at the table diagonal from him talked to each other quietly enough that normal people wouldn’t wouldn’t be able to hear them. But Andrew wasn’t normal. He wasn't trying to listen in, but the subject matter caught his attention.

"Yeah, I was there that night! It was insane," the girl with the orange jacket said, "Spider-man got there just in time."

"If the police hadn’t shot at that Electro guy in the first place, he wouldn't have tried to hurt anyone," the platinum blonde replied as she played on her phone.

"You weren't _there_ , Courtney," the girl said in a shrill voice.

The blonde put her phone down. "I saw the videos, Bree. They didn't have to shoot at him."

"Whatever.” The other practically stuck her nose up and crossed her arms.

Andrew didn’t like her. 

"Let's change the subject. You know she doesn't like to talk about Spider-man," the blonde told her passively, "and she'll be here any minute.” She glanced over her shoulder towards the door.

Bree lit up at this. “Did you hear that the police caught that crazy redhead?"

"No, who?" Courtney asked curiously.

"Hold on, I can look up his name," Bree picked her phone up, "but he's totally mad. He killed his own grandmother when he was just a kid! The parents should have taken him to get help when he tortured the family dog."

Andrew's phone vibrated. Violet had texted him, **"Hey, taking care of something. Text me when you want to meet up at the guest house."**

"Wow.” Courtney raised her eyebrows. "I didn't hear anything about that."

"Well, he's in jail now. Oh, here's his name, Cletus Kasady. It says here he set his orphanage on fire!"

The door opened up and another blonde entered.

"Gwen! Hey, Gwen!" Bree called out to her. 

Andrew did a double take when he heard her name, and sure enough, the girl that had walked through the front door was Gwen Stacy.

"Hey guys," Gwen smiled at them as she sat down at their table.

"Are you okay?" Courtney began, "you seem--"

"I'm fine, just work stuff," Gwen comically rolled her eyes.

"I bet it's that _boy_ again," Bree smiled mischievously, "Peter Parker."

" _Bree_ ," Courtney indicated towards Gwen.

"Right," Bree exhaled loudly, "we can't talk about Peter. We can't talk about Spider-man. What else can't we talk about?"

Andrew definitely did not like this 'Bree' girl.

Gwen looked at both of the girls in confusion, slightly agape.

"Sorry, she doesn't know when to keep her mouth shut," Courtney tried to laugh it off.

"Right, blame me.” Bree stood up from the table and tossed out her empty drink into the garbage. "Let me know when you're back to your old _fun_ self, Gwen.” She walked out the door.

"I don't even--"

"No, Gwen.” Courtney stood up. “It's not your fault, my sister, she's--"

"What just happened? What did I do?"

"I'll call you later, okay? I need to go find her.” Courtney rushed out the door.

Gwen clicked her tongue. “Okay," she said to herself. She scrunched her face up, still trying to figure out what had gone wrong.

Andrew snorted at her bewildered expression, but then instantly regretted it.

Gwen looked towards him, glaring daggers. “What's so funny?"

Andrew lowered his head, focusing on his bowl of Korean meatballs, which he just now realized was empty. 

"Nothing," he mumbled. 

"Wait a minute," Gwen tilted her head as Andrew looked back at her, "I know you."

"I don't think so," Andrew got up and tossed his trash in the garbage.

"Yeah, yeah I do.” She followed him.” You were in my class for a couple weeks."

He paused and turned back to her.

"Yeah..." She smiled slyly at him. "I remember you. Alex- no, Andrew."

He remained silent, unsure if he should interact any further with her. His own family was one thing, but he had never really known _her_.

"We all heard you and your sister just dropped out one day," Gwen said, although it sounded more like a question. 

"It wasn't like that," Andrew said irritably. She frowned at his tone. He sighed and ran a hand back through his hair, “Sorry. Can I help you with something... or?"

"Hey, you were the one who laughed at me," Gwen pursed her lips, although the smile on her face showed she wasn't angry at him.

"I wasn't laughing _at_ you," Andrew chuckled, "well maybe I was, but--"

Gwen crossed her arms. “Oh! Mhm, yeah," she nodded at him.

"-- _but_ it was your expression. You just looked so puzzled by what happened. It was..." Andrew tried thinking of a word. _Cute_ ran through his mind. “It just made me laugh. In a good way," he clarified.

Why the hell did _cute_ run through his mind?

"I'm glad the impending demise of my friendships amuses you."

"I'm sorry, but you could do without that friend in your life.” Andrew shook his head. "I didn't mean to eavesdrop, but the tables are pretty close."

"It's fine, really," Gwen sighed. “It was nice to see you again, Andrew. Anyway, I’m off to the bus stop.”

"I'll walk you there. It's getting pretty late," he opened the front door for her. 

Gwen considered him for a moment, “Okay." She thanked him as she walked through the open door.

For the next ten minutes or so, they slowly walked to the nearest bus stop.

"So, you're back in the city. Did you get a job out here or were you planning on getting your GED?" Gwen asked.

"Not too sure," Andrew paused, "just kind of going day by day right now."

"Sometimes I wish I could be like that," Gwen sighed, but then smiled, "I've pretty much got the next decade planned out."

"Oh yeah? What's that then?"

"I'm currently the Senior Research Officer at Oscorp, although they're already training my replacement. I might be going to Oxford University and well. It's between me and another person, but my work is confident I'll be getting the scholarship. If everything goes well, I'll be living there the next four years."

"You'll get it," Andrew smiled. He briefly wondered if she planned on going to England in the original timeline. It made him sad that either way, she would never get to go. It wasn't fair.

"Maybe," Gwen laughed and tossed back some of her hair, "I really hope I do."

"My- Peter told me about you. He said that you were- are the smartest person that he knows," Andrew stumbled over his words.

"Peter said that?"

Andrew nodded. Well, it was true Peter had told him that, even though it wasn't the Peter from _this_ time. 

"Well, here we are.” Gwen stopped at the bus stop sign. “Thanks for walking me."

"Yeah, anytime," Andrew said.

Gwen checked the time on her phone, "the bus will be here in about five minutes. I can wait here."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, but.” She took out a piece of paper and scribbled something on it. “Maybe we can get together again before I go to England. If I get the scholarship, that is."

Andrew took the piece of paper. Her phone number was on it. He pocketed it.

"Thanks again," Gwen touched his arm, "it was nice to see you again. I hope you figure out what it is you're doing.” She smiled and their eyes locked for several seconds before he looked away.

Andrew left the bus stop, knowing that Gwen would be okay. The paper in his pocket felt like a ton of bricks. He had barely said anything, and Gwen had given him her number. Maybe he was over-thinking it, maybe she really did just want to hang out. She was a level-headed person. Not to mention that, in just the short time he had spent with her, he had found her fascinating. 

Andrew passed up the long strip of restaurants, and found himself walking towards the less populated areas of the city again. If he got too far, he could always just swing back to the guest house.

"HEL--"

Andrew stopped. Someone was in trouble.

He listened very carefully as he moved in the direction of the call for help.

"Just give us your password," a man said gruffly, “Yell again, and I'll put a bullet in your head."

Andrew turned the corner, and three men were standing next to an ATM. One of them was clutching his briefcase, one was angrily punching in the numbers on the ATM screen, and the last had a gun up to the first man's head.

"Give him the password, now!" the man with the gun yelled. He had a black ski mask on, while the man at the ATM had no face cover.

"I-- I don't know-- I never use that card--" the man stammered.

"I'm gonna give you ’til the count of three, then I'm gonna shoot."

"Tsk, tsk, tsk.” Andrew crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. “There's no need to get violent, fellas."

The man with the ski mask pointed the gun towards Andrew and then back at the man with the briefcase.

"Beat it kid, or you'll be the one with a bullet in ya."

"Nah, I don't think so.” Andrew straightened up. “Is that even loaded?" he smirked.

"Wanna see for yourself?"

Andrew took a few steps forward. The man with the gun fired at his feet, which he easily dodged by stepping to the side.

"Hey!" The ATM man seemed annoyed that the ski mask man had fired. He turned to Andrew. “Leave now."

Andrew quickly snatched the gun from the man with his webbing. 

"Didn't you ever learn about basic gun safety?" Andrew asked as he bent the barrel of the gun upwards and tossed it to the side.

"It's Spider-man!" the man with the ski mask yelled and took off running. Andrew raised his eyebrow at the other man, who growled and took off towards his partner.

"Thanks, thank you so much!" the man with the briefcase yelled as Andrew followed the criminals.

"Where do you think you two are going?" Andrew called out as they ran down the closest alleyway. The man who had run first seemed to be slower than his partner. Andrew shot a web out and the man was quickly stuck to the ground.

Two shots were fired and he lazily dodged them. The other man had a hidden gun. With another lazy movement, Andrew snatched the gun and webbed up the man at the same time.

"You thugs are all the same," Andrew bent the second gun and tossed it, "you know Spider-man is protecting the city, and yet you think you're the one who's going to get away with it," he shook his head. Both of the men were webbed to the ground by their feet, and weren't going anywhere anytime soon.

Andrew sensed someone behind him and, thinking there was a third man in their party, spun around and got ready to disarm them.

When he saw who it was, he straightened up and tugged down his beanie nervously, although it was already as far down as it would go. Even without being able to see the face of the newcomer, Andrew already knew he’d been discovered.

"Crap."

XXX

"He seems nice," Aunt May said conversationally after Andrew had left their house.

"Yeah, he's alright.” Peter shrugged. It was true that he seemed like one of the friendlier people at his school, even though he had only been there a couple weeks. There was just _something_ off about him. Peter hadn't told anyone else, because of how crazy it sounded, but he still remembered the day Andrew and his sister just disappeared in an alley after school one day.

"You really should be spending time with other people your age, you know.” Aunt May began to clean up the kitchen table. “It's not healthy, keeping everyone at a distance, you know."

She had a point. Ever since Gwen had officially broken up with him, Peter found himself spending more and more time as Spider-man. The only person he actually spent time with was his aunt, and that probably wasn't normal for someone his age. Then again, he wasn't normal.

"Harry's back in town," Peter said.

Aunt May stopped cleaning. "Harry Osborn?" she asked.

"Yeah," he nodded, "we hung out a little. He's busy a lot of the time though, and with his father dying, a lot of his time is going to the company."

"You need to bring that boy over, Peter Parker," Aunt May frowned, "he's far too young to be dealing with this, let alone by himself.”

"I'll see what I can do. I'll tell him you miss him," Peter grinned.

"I do! He spent more time here than at his own house.” Her forehead creased. Peter knew that Aunt May had considered Harry somewhat of a second son.

"Alright Aunt May, I'll let him know," Peter said. He finished helping her with any small tasks she was doing in the kitchen. "I'm going to head to bed. Thanks again for dinner," he said and headed towards his room.

Thanks to Andrew, he didn't have to continue his battery experiments tonight. Tomorrow, he would pick up some heavy duty magnets to magnetize his web shooters. The outside of the shooters were nickel-plated, so he figured it should work out how he planned.

He decided to spend the next couple hours keeping watch over the city. It was nice and breezy outside and Peter was hoping now that with Electro being caught, it would be an easy night.

Within the first ten minutes, Peter had to save a girl leaving a night club from getting mugged. He left the mugger webbed to the side of the club as the girl shouted a 'thanks' and called the police.

Only fifteen minutes after that, he heard gunshots. He had to suppress a laugh when he got to the scene. The owner of a Mobil gas station was firing warning shots at one very terrified thief. The owner yelled a mouthful of profanities as he walked back into his gas station. Peter hung around for awhile to ensure the thief did not return before he heard another gunshot.

Peter took off towards the sound, getting there within a minute. There was a man in a khaki colored jacket tightly holding a briefcase. Another figure in dark clothing was running away from the man. Peter dropped down next to the man with the briefcase.

"Did he steal anything or hurt anyone?" Peter nodded his head towards the running figure.

The man's eyes widened and mouth hung open as he took in Peter's appearance. "No he-- you-- Spider-man..." The guy shook his head, "but he helped me, he's going after the bad guys."

The guy quickly looked back and forth between Peter and the other person who had just now turned the corner. He seemed very confused.

Without another word, Peter swung himself up onto the wall that was next to the alley where the possible criminal had ran into. He took just a second to see how many people he may have to deal with, but what he saw caused him to freeze in awe.

One of the men was already webbed to the ground. The figure he saw running just moments later easily dodged bullets that the second man shot at him. Any other person wouldn't have been able to move fast enough in such close proximity. Who the hell was this guy?

"You thugs are all the same," the figure said as he broke the gun and tossed it, "you know Spider-man is protecting the city, and yet you think you're the one who's going to get away with it."

Peter dropped down to the ground. He knew that voice. In fact, it was only an hour ago that he was with that person. He needed to be sure though.

The figure spun around quickly, looking like he was ready to strike. It was exactly the person he thought it was. The change was almost instantaneous when Andrew saw who exactly was behind him. To Peter, he almost seemed like a child who had just got caught doing something they shouldn't do. 

"Crap," Andrew said. 

Peter was at a loss for words. So many thoughts clouded his mind that all he could do was stand and stare.

Before Peter could get a coherent word out, Andrew had leapt onto the wall and began climbing upwards towards the roof.

"Wait," Peter called to him. 

Andrew didn't slow down, and Peter quickly chased after him. 

"Hey!" Peter yelled again, just as Andrew took a running start and jumped to the roof of another building. Peter shot out a few times at him, but every time the webbing was dodged, even with him jumping to more rooftops.

"Andrew!" he tried. This caused the other to pause before jumping to the next building. "Just hold on, I'm not going to hurt you or anything," Peter said in what he hoped was a reassuring way. Andrew was a few feet from the edge of the building that they were currently both on.

"I didn't mean for you to find out," Andrew said to him.

"Did you- uh did you take the webbing from the garage earlier?" Peter asked him. It was the only logical explanation he could think of.

Andrew crossed his arms over his chest as his eyebrows pulled together. “No," he said, clearly offended.

"So you, what, just decided to create the same webbing I use?" 

"It's not the same," Andrew rubbed at his wrist.

Peter took a few steps forward. He didn't want him to take off again, but he needed answers. "Look, it's not safe to play vigilante."

Andrew scoffed, “That's rich coming from you."

"I'm not your average human."

"Maybe I'm not either," he said slowly. A sudden mischievous smile made it's way onto Andrew's face, "I didn't have to make my own webbing."

Peter was about to ask what he meant, but Andrew held both wrists up, showing there was no device on either of them. He aimed towards a metal vent with both wrists and shot a strand of webbing out of each.

"How did- you can- what?" Peter exclaimed.

"I think maybe we should talk," Andrew said it in a question form, letting Peter decide whether or not he wanted to.

There were so many questions racing through his mind at the moment, but here was not the place to be talking about these things.

"Yeah, yeah. Let's go back to the garage.” Peter walked to the edge of the building near Andrew. “Can you keep up?"

"You'll just have to see," he smirked. Peter rolled his eyes, although Andrew wouldn't be able to tell, and leapt off the side.

Neither of them said anything to each other the whole way there. It was almost like the were playing a game; Andrew would quickly zip to the other side of a building and suddenly be in front of Peter, and then Peter would do the same. 

"Stop here.” Peter landed on the ground, just a few blocks from his house. Andrew landed silently next to him. "I'm going to sneak back into my room to change. I'll meet you in the garage. It should be unlocked."

Andrew nodded and took the sidewalk back to the house.

Peter tried to remember to be quiet as he changed into his normal clothes. Aunt May was sleeping in her bedroom right now. He checked his phone and noticed he had a missed call from Gwen and decided he would call her back in the morning. There was just too much going on right now.

When he got to the garage, Andrew was seated in the chair that he had previously been in earlier that day. Or yesterday, technically, when Peter considered the time it was.

"I don't even know where to start," Peter began, "I mean, how is this possible? Who are you? How did you know about me?"

Andrew smiled in what Peter thought was amusement. "Well, my name _is_ Andrew," he said. He drew his lower lip between his teeth. "It happened sometime after I was at Oscorp."

"Oscorp?" Peter repeated.

Andrew nodded, “Yeah. There was a room full of--"

"--spiders."

He nodded again, "I volunteered to test out the effects of the spider venom."

"That's where you got the name Osborn," Peter rested his chin on his hand as he leaned against the work bench.

"Right.” Andrew scratched the back of his neck. "The only thing that happened at the time though was the color change to my eyes. My powers didn't show up until later."

"Mine showed up the next morning," Peter said, "what powers do you have?"

Andrew paused for a moment. "Far as I can tell, same as you. Except for the webbing.” He shook his wrist and shrugged.

Peter suddenly flung a wrench towards Andrew, who caught it without hesitation. Andrew raised an eyebrow at him as he nodded in satisfaction.

"Just checking."

"What if I didn't have quick reflexes?" Andrew tossed the wrench on the floor.

"It wouldn't have hit you, I aimed an inch to the right," Peter grinned.

"Wow, thanks," he replied sarcastically. "So, how did you get your powers?"

Peter exhaled loudly. "In theory, same as you. Except I snuck into the room while trying to get some information about my father. I was bit by one of the spiders and I decided to use my powers to help others."

"Who all knows about you?"

"Just you and..." Peter paused, unsure if he should tell Andrew about Gwen. It didn't seem like he was hiding anything from him though. "...my uh kind-of-ex-girlfriend Gwen."

Andrew raised both of his eyebrows. "That's it? What about your aunt and uncle?"

"My aunt doesn't know," Peter shook his head. _That_ was a conversation he definitely did not want to have with her. "How'd you know about my uncle?" he asked suspiciously.

"I just assumed. I saw a picture when we were in your house."

"Oh." That made sense. "Well, my uncle actually passed away. Not too long after I got my powers."

Andrew frowned. "I'm sorry to hear that."

There was silence after that. Andrew was picking at the sleeve of his hoodie.

"Who knows about you?" Peter asked.

"Other than you, just my sister."

"That's it?" Peter repeated his words.

Andrew shrugged. "She's all I have left. Our parents died and we don't have any other family," he said.

They were starting to have a lot more in common with each other than Peter thought.

"Sorry," Peter said as he stared at the floor. "I know how it is, though. I lost both of my parents at a really young age. My aunt is all I have left."

"We're some kind of pair aren't we?” Andrew laughed sarcastically.

Peter nodded thoughtfully.

"The day you left school, that day I asked if you wanted to hang out," Peter began, "I uh- I didn't exactly _mean_ to, but I kind of followed you and your sister."

Andrew looked at him expectantly, and began rubbing at his wrist again.

"You two went into an alleyway and..." Peter coughed. He knew this was going to sound crazy. "You both disappeared."

"Disappeared?"

"Uh, yeah," Peter said slowly.

"I don't know what you think you saw, but _that_ definitely did not happen. We didn't just disappear," Andrew laughed. "I was showing my sister my powers and I jumped over the fence with her on my back."

Peter pondered this for a moment. He swears he saw the both of them go into the alleyway, hold something, and then disappear… Peter moved some tools on the work bench to the side and sat up on it, letting his legs hang off the front. 

"Anyway... so you just fight crime? Save the city? That sort of thing?" Andrew leaned back in the chair and crossed his arms behind his head.

"There are three paths you can choose with powers like this," he said seriously, "you can either become the hero, become a villain, or do nothing. As far as I'm concerned, doing nothing is nearly as bad as becoming the bad guy."

Andrew tilted his head forward and opened his mouth as if he were going to say something, but let his head fall back into his hands.

"You helped those people today," Peter commented.

"If I see someone who needs help, I help them. I don't really go looking for it, though. People tend to get the wrong impression of me," he said, "I don't like being different from everyone else."

"Well," Peter began, "you're not, not anymore anyways. You and I are pretty similar I'd say." He knew exactly what it felt like to be different. 

"Yeah," Andrew smiled at him, "I guess you're right." He yawned.

"How come you didn't try to find me earlier? Or say something? How long have you had these powers?" Peter fired more questions at him.

"It feels like forever," he chuckled, "but longer than you've had yours. Way before I met you." Andrew had his eyes closed as he leaned back into the chair.

Peter nodded thoughtfully. He didn't pry on any unanswered questions.

"I wasn't trying to get in your way or anything tonight. This is probably totally weird for you and all," Andrew mumbled.

"Are you kidding me? This is great!" Peter smiled.

"Really?" Andrew raised an eyebrow in disbelief before closing his eyes again. “Why's that?"

Peter carefully stood on the work bench and pulled himself up into skylight, holding himself in place between the two walls. "Well for starters, now we both know that we're not alone. I mean like-" he tried to find the right word, but came up short, "-I thought I was the only one like this, so it's kind of cool that I found you."

"Mhm," Andrew said sleepily.

Peter checked his phone, wishing Gwen would text him. Ever since she told him about England, he had been anxious to see if she would get the grant.. There was a small selfish part of him that hoped she wouldn’t, but in the end, what made her happy was more important. That's all he wanted for her, even if that meant she had to move to a different country.

"Thanks again for helping earlier with the batteries.” Peter pocketed his phone. He waited a few seconds, but Andrew didn't reply. Peter looked down to see Andrew's mouth slightly open and his eyes shut.

"Dude, you awake?" Peter asked quietly and then rolled his eyes at himself. He obviously wasn’t. 

Peter wondered whether or not he should wake him up. He shifted into a more comfortable position and decided to just hang out in the skylight until Andrew woke up. He probably just needs a short nap, he thought. Peter closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.

XXX

Normie was freezing. Scarlet had him follow her to Northern Canada in order to find Stryker. _Her master_. They had already been to multiple countries, and the last place they had been in was Argentina. A mutant there had told Scarlet that last she heard, Stryker was in Canada. So there they were: surrounded by mountains in the middle of the night in unseasonably cold weather.

"This was a waste of time," Scarlet growled as she dropped the dead body of a female mutant to the ground. She looked at the body as if it had insulted her. The mutant had had purple skin and long black hair. Normie just kept his eyes on her left hand. It kept making a swirling motion.

"At least the scenery is nice here," Normie grinned cheekily, attempting to get rid of some of the tension. Instead of looking at the snow covered mountains, Scarlet looked up above her head.

"It is, isn't it?" she said in monotone.

Don't look up.

"We- we've been searching for awhile now. Don't you think th- that it would be better if we stuck close to our island?" Normie asked.

"I know when he will get there. Now is not the time," Scarlet searched the body on the ground with her right hand, while the left kept making swirling motions.

Normie nodded, keeping his eyes focused on the ground. "You don't need to kill any more mutants or super humans. You already do that in the future. They're gone already.   
Once we go back to our time, they'll already be dead." 

Normie was no stranger to seeing dead bodies or murder before. It wasn't something he could just get used to, though.

"We're not going back to that time," Scarlet said.

"What?" Normie's head snapped up to look her in the face. She must not have found anything useful on the dead mutant, as she was already standing up.

"Stryker is dead in that time. He is alive here."

Normie frowned but didn't reply. He had a feeling she was going to decide this. A strangled gasp of pain came from the sky. Normie focused on the ground again.

A second later, Scarlet was suddenly in front of him. He flinched as she brought her right hand to his chin.

"You do not need to be afraid of me," she said softly, "as long as you do not get in my way and you stay on my side."

He couldn't help the skeptical look on his face. “You tried to freeze me with a ball of ice."

"You were being difficult," she gently slapped his cheek and let go of him, "just do as you're told and you'll be fine. I'll make sure no harm comes to you."

"I don't want you to kill my brother or sister," Normie snapped.

"The ones who want to get rid of me and erase you from time?" she asked in a tight voice.

"I could talk to them. I could change their minds."

Scarlet smiled in an unfriendly way. “They literally traveled through time to attempt to stop me. I don't believe a little chat with you is going to change anything."

"Let me try," Normie pleaded, “Please. Let me at least try."

"Time can't change right now. My old self needs to get sent to that island. I believe they're going to wait until right before I get taken to change anything. That's when I am going to stop them. They will die, Peter Parker will die, and any other person in that warehouse will die."

"If you kill my father, then I won't exist," Normie rebutted.

"Not if you stay in this time," Scarlet explained. "You're already here. The problem would be if you went back to our time after that happened."

"Besides, your father and Peter Parker are already dead where we're from," Scarlet lazily looked above her as another gasp echoed.

Normie didn't respond to this. He knew Peter Parker _probably_ wasn't dead. In fact, he was genuinely surprised Scarlet didn't find out what he did. Within that half second before Scarlet and Normie time jumped to follow the twins, he used his freezing power on Peter. The other half of that second, Normie grabbed onto Peter as they jumped. There was an explosion and he was forced to let go of Peter. When time finally stopped, Normie and Scarlet were off to the destination they had planned. He had no idea what happened to Peter.

"Look," he changed the subject away from his father and friend, "I have done everything you asked of me since we got here. I haven't lied to you. All I'm asking is that you let me try and reason with them. They're my brother and sister, and your children too. If they see that your way is the only way and agree to stop what they're trying to do, can you please spare them?"

Scarlet studied his face. "I have not lied to you either. You understand that my mission is to eradicate all mutants and super humans?"

" _Yes_ ," Normie saw red droplets fall next to Scarlet, "and yet you have given me immunity."

"Under my conditions, yes. You are my offspring, and that's the only reason I even _considered_ this," Scarlet said, her eyes starting to narrow dangerously.

"They are too," he said in a small voice. He knew that if he pushed her too much, she could change her mind and end him right here.

"I had those two when I was human. They mean next to nothing to me."

Scarlet watched him silently. 

"Okay," she started, "I will allow you to try and reason with those two. If they cease all activity against me, and agree to my conditions, then we can talk about immunity."

Normie controlled his face, not wanting to show too much excitement.

"You are not to make your presence known to them yet. I need to keep some things in order. If I believe something they are tampering too greatly with what needs to be done, I will handle it."

"That sounds fair," he said. "Can I please see them? I just want to check on them, make sure they're safe. I won't show myself to them or talk to any of them."

Scarlet smirked, "believe me, if you let them know we're here before I want it to be known, they will be the next to die."

The sudden sound of breaking bone causes Normie to look up, above Scarlet. He regretted it instantly. She had ceased twirling her left hand, and the body above her stopped moving. With a flick of her wrist, the body flew forward several feet, and began to twist unnaturally as she concentrated on making a ball with her hands.

The feral looking mutant dropped to the ground; limbs broken and crushed against her body. 

"Its name was Goblyn. Funny, right? I'm not on the same page of humor as most people," Scarlet said to Normie as she stared at the pool of blood pooling around the second body. "Just one more Goblin to put down now."

Normie's face paled and he remained silent once again.

"Sure, go ahead and see them," she said in a false cheery tone, "meet me in Quebec in twenty-four hours. Do not use transportation, you have your speed. Be quick and be quiet."

"Right. Yes. I will."

It was hard to not look at the two dead mutants on the ground not more than ten feet away from him. He thought instead of seeing his family, although he wouldn't be able to communicate with them. It wouldn't take too long to get there if he didn't take too many rests; nearly 3,000 miles wasn't that bad if you thought about it. Last time they checked his speed, he clocked about 800mph. It would take a lot of energy out of him and he would need to keep snacking the entire time. Maybe a couple boxes of pop tarts would do...

"One more thing, Normie."

"Yes?" he winced.

"When the time comes that you try to persuade Andrew and Violet to our side and they should deny your request, make no mistake that they will die like the rest of them. _You_ will dispose of them yourself if that is the case. That is my condition for you to give them the chance for immunity."

Normie stared at her, unable to hide the dread on his face.

"However, should you choose to do what I suggest, and leave them out of this, I will make their deaths painless. You won't have to get your hands dirty."

"They'll listen to me. They will," he said in a determined voice.

She slowly nodded at him, “Get going then. I'll deal with this mess," Scarlet gestured towards the dead mutants.

In just four and a half seconds, Normie was already a mile away.


	9. Chapter 9

Peter’s cell phone rang and woke him up from his sleep. He groaned and opened one eye. It was too bright so he blindly shot his webbing towards the sound. As the object he latched onto flew towards him, he felt it suddenly pulled away, followed by a metallic thud on the floor. Peter opened his eyes marginally, seeing a screwdriver roll away.

"Idiot."

Peter's eyes widened as he realized he was not alone. Andrew was still in the chair he fell asleep in, except he was leaning forward and quickly checking through his own phone. His hair was in disarray.

Andrew smiled as he glanced up at Peter and shook his head. He pointed at the screwdriver. “You were going to get yourself stabbed with that thing. Lucky I was here to stop it," he laughed, clearly amused.

Peter's phone stopped ringing. 

"Dammit, she is going to be so pissed at me.” Andrew grimaced as his own phone seemed to receive several text messages consecutively.

The phone began to ring again. Peter was momentarily confused; not quite sure why he was sleeping in the skylight, or why there was daylight outside already.

Andrew looked up at Peter expectantly and then back to the ringing phone. He sighed dramatically and got out of the chair. He tossed the phone up to Peter while still texting on his own phone with the other hand.

"Hello?" Peter answered the phone sleepily.

"Pete, it's me." Harry said in a hoarse voice.

That woke him up a little bit. "Hey Harry, wh-what time is it?"

"Almost nine," Andrew loudly whispered from below. 

Peter stared curiously as Andrew shot a small bit of webbing into his hand and began rolling it into a ball.

"Late? Early? I don't know, I've been up all night I need to see you," Harry said.

"Are you alri- ugh!" Peter crinkled his nose at the ball of webbing that was now hanging from his arm. 

"Peter?" Harry questioned.

Andrew attempted to stifle his laughter. "That's for not waking me up," he said.

"Yeah, yeah sorry, Har," Peter tried getting the webbing off, but it was much more sticky than the stuff he created. "You alright? You sound kind of... off."

"Not really. I'm dying." Peter froze at his words. Even Andrew stopped laughing. "But, I think you can help save my life."

"Where are you?" Peter kept his voice steady.

"Oscorp. You need to see something. Get here soon, Pete.” Harry hung up.

Peter dropped down from the skylight, staring at his phone in shock. This had to be some kind of sick joke, because there was _no way_ Harry was actually dying. Though, the odds of this being a joke were slim to none. Harry was never one for pranks. 

"Everything alright?" Andrew asked, clearly uncomfortable. Peter knew that he had to have heard what was said on the phone, and was trying to be polite by feigning ignorance. His hearing wasn't exactly super human, but his primary senses were above average perception, and he was willing to bet that Andrew's senses were the same, if not better than his own.

Peter shook his head. "No, uh... I need to get to Oscorp. My friend needs my help," Peter said as he quickly put away anything he wouldn't want his aunt seeing. 

"Alright. Well, let me know if you need anything," Andrew said. 

Peter paused. “Thanks. I will." He rubbed his arm absently and looked down as he remembered the glob of webbing stuck to it.

"Here," Andrew said as he easily pulled the webbing off of his arm as if it were a stray piece of hair. "My webbing is a lot more adhesive than yours, and my fingertips are more compatible with it than yours are."

"Yeah, I noticed," Peter rubbed his arm where the webbing had pulled out some of his arm hair. "Look, I have to go. Um, if you need to hang out here for a while, that's fine. Get ahold of me later if you want to talk or hang out or whatever."

"I'm heading out, actually. My sister is pretty worried about me," Andrew said. His phone alerted him of another text.

"Good luck with that," Peter said as Andrew rushed out of the garage.

Peter tried not to cringe when he saw Andrew web slinging himself home, in broad daylight, in nothing but a hoodie to hide himself.

He was going to have to have a talk with him about being less conspicuous.

XXX

Felicia Hardy walked Peter up to one of Harry's private offices. Peter thought he may have seen her one of the times he had been to Oscorp, but apparently now she was Harry's new assistant. She looked as young and out of place as Harry. That’s probably why they got along so well. 

Harry thanked Felicia and turned towards Peter, missing the flirty smile she threw at him.

Harry seemed distracted. He barely said a couple words to Peter before he started a video on the flat screen and took a seat.

Peter was confused when both of their fathers popped up on the video. They were talking about genetically engineered super spiders, and Peter’s stomach dropped. Did Harry know about him? No, that was impossible. 

As he listened to the video, he kept glancing at Harry through his peripheral vision. There was something wrong with his friend. His face and hands were covered in a cold sweat, and his hands, they kept trembling.

Harry cut the video, leaving Peter speechless. He had no idea that his father had worked with Harry's. The fact that his own father had been working with 'genetically engineered super spiders' seemed beyond implausible. 

"They never even made it to human trials. That's fourteen years of research and nothing to show for it," Harry said as he jumped up from his chair.

But that wasn't true. Andrew had told him that he had volunteered to be the first human trial. Maybe there were more files, some that not even Harry could access.

"Except maybe this," Harry tossed a newspaper article onto the table. "Spider-Man."

Harry looked at the photo of Spider-Man as if it could solve all his problems.

"What about him?" Peter tried to ask nonchalantly. It was the first time he had spoken since they had been alone.

"He was bitten by one of those things and it worked!" Harry pointed to the screen, his voice rising. "I don't know how, and I don't know why, but he can do everything else a spider can. Including self heal. I need to find him. I need his blood."

How had Harry come to this conclusion? What had made him so desperate?

"You need... Spider-Man's blood," Peter said skeptically. 

"It will save my life."

Peter sighed. “It may not, Har. It might not be that simple. You saw what happened to Curt Connors, right?" He needed Harry to understand the gravity of what he was asking. Peter had helped Connors, and it ended up turning him into a giant lizard monster.

"Connors was weak. This is me, Peter," Harry practically ground his teeth. 

He was right in that respect. Harry was the most stubborn person Peter knew. He usually got whatever it was he wanted, and if he wanted Spider-Man's blood to work, Harry would do whatever it took to make that happen.

"I don't think you can just set up a van... and have him donate. I mean, I'm sure he's sensitive--"

"Sensitive... sensitive," Harry scoffed.

Peter continued, "a-about having people shoving needles and... and--"

"Alright. Okay. Well then maybe you could just sensitively tell me where he is and I will go ask him myself," Harry's voice shook.

"What?" Peter asked, dumbfounded.

"You took his picture, so you know him."

"Harry, I took a picture from a long way away. I used a long lens. I don't know him.”

Harry paused for a moment. Peter hoped that _maybe_ Harry was starting to see this idea as a lost cause. 

"I put together what you said at the river," Harry said.

"What I--"

"About how he gives people hope," Harry said, “Come on."

Peter couldn't do this. Why didn't Harry understand? Why couldn't he ever just accept “No” for an answer? He wanted to help him, but this was not the way. 

"Come on, just say yes," Harry pleaded with him. 

This was it for Peter. He couldn't say “Yes” to something like this, but he couldn't say “No” either, not when he was so desperate. He had to have time to think. Without answering his friend, Peter got up to leave.

"Don't turn your back on me!" Harry growled. His tone softened. “I don't want to end up like my father, Peter. Please.”

It was hard to look him in the eyes, knowing that he was going to have to say “No” sooner or later. Even as Harry begged him again and wrapped an arm around him in a hug, Peter knew he couldn't give him what he wanted. It would only hurt him.

"I'm going to try and find Spider-Man," Peter said. 

He turned and left the office.

What the hell was he going to do? He had briefly thought about just telling Harry who he was. Maybe it would make this whole situation less complicated. Then again, maybe Harry would demand that Peter give him his blood right then and there.

There was only one other person that would understand the situation.

Peter stopped in an empty hallway, making sure he was alone, and pulled out his phone. Maybe Andrew knew more information about his own blood since he had actually been in the labs with the scientists. He cursed and put his phone away when there was no answer.

He made his way back to the elevators, deciding to head home. It was still pretty early in the day, maybe he could catch a couple more hours of sleep before he decided what to do.

As the glass elevator descended, he noticed several security guards running down an aisle. When he saw what, or rather _who_ they were running towards, Peter quickly stopped the elevator and hopped out.

"Ms. Stacy, you must come with me,” Peter heard a man command just before he turned the corner. There stood a man in a black suit and a security guard. The other two that were running over here would be here any second.

"There must be some kind of mistake," Gwen said innocently. Her eyes widened, but Peter could see relief on her face when she saw him round the corner.

"Come on, let's go.” The security guard motioned down the hallway. The other two had just shown up. Gwen stood her ground.

"What's wrong? What happened?" Peter walked up to the small group.

"Sir, we need you to stand back," the second guard ordered.

The third guard grabbed Gwen by the arm. "Let's go. Now."

Peter's hand shot forward, grabbing the man's arm in an instant.

"Do not touch her," he said in a low voice, fighting the urge the break his arm.

"What's going on here?" 

Everyone turned. The man in the black suit swore under his breath, which Peter assumed only he could hear. The security guard who had grabbed Gwen's arm let go, which Peter soon followed after giving him one last warning squeeze.

Harry was standing, both hands in his pockets, looking much more put together than a few minutes ago. Felicia stood on Harry's right. She had a curious look on her face. Harry's was more amused. 

"We've been ordered to bring Gwen Stacy in for questioning," the man in the black suit said. Peter saw Harry's eyes flicker to him, then to Gwen, and back to him again after hearing Gwen's name. "Mr. Parker here tried to stop us," the man added.

Peter scrunched up his face in confusion. How did he know his name?

"What is she being questioned for?" Harry asked. 

Peter could practically hear the man next to him grinding his teeth in frustration. "She is being questioned due to her browsing history today. I am unable to disclose the content at this time."

Peter rolled his eyes. Whatever they wanted with Gwen, it seemed to have to do with a lot more than just 'browsing history.’

"Sir, Menken spoke with us directly about this," the first guard said.

Harry narrowed his eyes at the man. "Well, be that as it may, I actually asked Ms. Stacy to look into some things for me earlier today. Felicia was busy with," Harry paused for a moment before turning towards the man in the black suit with a smirk, "something I am unable to disclose with you at this time."

The man in the black suit looked torn. "Sir--"

"So," Harry interrupted him, "whatever it is you need to talk to her about, you can talk to me about. Just not today, or tomorrow." He turned to Felicia. “Maybe you can pencil them in for sometime next month?"

"Of course, Mr. Osborn," Felicia smiled.

"You're all dismissed," Harry looked pointedly at the guards. 

The man waited for the guards to leave before he took several steps towards Harry. "You don't understand the seriousness of the situation."

"Tell Menken to speak with me before he orders one of you tools to harass one of my employees again.” Harry stepped around him. "Felicia, why don't you take the rest of the day off. Pete, Gwen, come on, I'll walk you out."

Peter held in his laughter as the man stared incredulously at them. Harry started towards the front entrance, so Peter put a comforting hand on Gwen's back and led her forward as he followed Harry.

“What was that about?" Peter whispered to Gwen.

"Later," she whispered back. Her shoulders were tense.

Once they were out of the building and on the front sidewalk, Gwen relaxed. Peter pulled his hand away from her.

"Thanks for that, Harry," Peter said, gesturing towards the front doors.

"Anytime, Pete," Harry half smiled. "That's what friends are for."

Peter scuffed the front of his shoe against the sidewalk and nodded, trying not to feel guilty about their meeting earlier.

Harry took his sunglasses out from his suit jacket pocket and put them. He faced Gwen. "So, this is the famous Gwen Stacy that Peter hasn't been able to stop talking about."

Peter felt his face go red. "Har-"

"I'm Harry Osborn.” He held his hand out to shake Gwen's hand.

Gwen smiled and took his hand. "I know. Peter's mentioned you. It's nice to finally meet you.” She let go of his hand. "And thanks for covering for me earlier."

Harry chuckled. "Do I even want to know what you were searching?"

"Oh um, I was just-" Gwen looked nervously at Peter for a second. He gave her a curious look, and suddenly Peter could practically see a light bulb above her head, "-I was curious about the incident in the city the other day that involved the guy who can control electricity. I was there when it happened, and he was saying something about Oscorp. When I started searching for something about him in the database, I was instantly locked out of my account."

Harry drew his eyebrows together, narrowing his eyes. "What did he say about Oscorp?"

"Something about wanting revenge for what Oscorp did to him. Other than that, he only made some snarky comment about it being his birthday..." Gwen paused, “…Oh! I met an employee here who was talking about his birthday. But that would be too big of a coincidence..." She bit her lip and rubbed her chin in thought.

"Well, what was his name?" Harry asked, looking between Peter and Gwen.

"Max. Max Dillon."

Peter's eyes widened. The guy had said his name was Max.

"Huh," Harry commented. "I'll see if I can sort this out. Peter, let me know as soon as you can about what we discussed. Gwen, it was nice to meet you," he said. 

Peter nodded. "I will, Har."

As soon as Harry was gone, Peter turned to Gwen.

"What's going on? I never heard any comment about Oscorp from that electric guy."

"I met Max Dillon in an elevator at Oscorp the other day. I don't know how, but that guy that you fought the other night _was_ him. I tried getting more information about him when I got locked out. I figured if I mentioned it to Harry, he would be able to find out what happened.”

"Right. Okay," Peter said. He was pretty sure Harry had other things on his mind right now. Like getting ahold of Spider-Man's blood, for example.

"Max is a huge fan of Spider-Man by the way. He _loves_ him.” Gwen nudged his shoulder. 

"I was getting more of a 'I want to kill you with my electricity' vibe from him."

"Well, that's kind of how it is to love you," Gwen's eyebrows rose.

"That's-" Peter felt his cell phone vibrate. “Hold on." He checked the I.D. and saw that Andrew was calling him back. He really needed to talk to Andrew about what Harry had asked him, but he also wanted to stay and talk with Gwen some more. He wanted to tell her about Harry, but right now wasn't the time.

"It's fine, Peter. I need to go anyway.” Gwen squeezed his arm.

"Bye, Gwen," he said as she started in the other direction. This was the second time he's been able to talk to her in months and it only lasted a couple minutes. He sighed and answered his phone.

"Andrew, hey."

"What's up? Something wrong?" Andrew's voice seemed worried.

Yes. "Kind of," Peter said slowly. He hid behind a huge dumpster, putting his clothes into his bag so he was able to swing home.

"Care to elaborate?"

"My friend, the one I met at Oscorp, well he actually _owns_ Oscorp, but that's-" Peter ran a hand through his hair, “His name is Harry. He's sick. Um, dying actually, and he thinks that I can help him."

"Wow that- that sucks. I'm sorry about your friend but, why does he think that you can help him?" Andrew asked.

"Not _me_ , Spider-Man," Peter hissed into the phone.

Andrew paused. "You told him?"

"No, I- I work at The Bugle as a photographer and I take pictures of Spider-Man and I sell them to make money. Harry saw my name credited on the picture."

"You take pictures of yourself and sell them?" Peter could tell Andrew was trying not to laugh.

"Yes," Peter groaned, "but that's not the point! He thinks my blood, Spider-Man's blood, can cure him. He thinks that it can help him self-heal. You are the only other person that might understand the position I'm in. I don't want my friend to get hurt. What do you think?"

Peter waited, but Andrew didn't answer. Instead he was having a quiet argument with someone else on his end of the line.

"...hello?"

"Yeah, Peter, sorry. Just trying to- VIOLET HOLD ON- go into another room," Andrew huffed. Nearly another minute of quiet arguing again. "I heard what you said, Peter-" A door slammed. "-and my sister didn't hear anything, all good."

Peter was already about halfway home. "Right, so..." he trailed off.

"You can't just give him your blood. Are your blood types even the same? Anyways, we would have no idea how it would even turn out. He could die or turn into... something. It's too dangerous."

"Right!" Peter agreed. "That's what I thought, but I don't know what I'm going to do. I want to help him, but this isn't the way."

"What if you tested it first? Ran some trials. Just tell your friend to give you a couple months to work with-" Andrew said in a quiet voice.

Peter laughed flatly. "Harry is not a patient person."

"Well, if he wants this done the _right_ way, he's going to have to be."

Andrew was right. If Peter could convince Harry to just give him some time, he was sure he could find a way for this to work. He _couldn't_ let his friend die. 

"I told him I would talk to Spider-Man for him. I'm thinking... in a couple days, I'm just going to show up in my suit and talk to him. I'll persuade him to let me test it first. Me, though, not Spider-Man, I mean-"

"You'll tell Harry, as Spider-Man, that Peter will test it?" Andrew questioned.

Peter quietly landed in the back alley behind his house and began putting his clothes on over his suit. "Mm...yeah," Peter said. It sounded like a good plan.

"What if he recognizes your voice? Aren't you guys like best friends?"

Peter paused for a moment before putting on his shoes. "Crap, you're right. What do you suggest then?"

"What if _you_ go to Harry and say you talked to Spider-Man, and _I'll_ show up in the suit. It would cover your identity and that way we would both be there to explain to him that our way is the better way," Andrew said.

"That... actually sounds like a better plan," Peter admitted. He opened his front door, and called out to his aunt, who did not respond. "How about I shoot you a text in a couple of days?" Peter opened up his bedroom door and froze. Aunt May was sitting on his bed, staring at his wall. His wall of information about his parents, Gwen, _him_.

"Awesome," Andrew said through the phone.

Aunt May was staring at Peter with both confusion and a slight hint of betrayal.

"Uh, Andrew, I'm going to have to let you go," Peter said, hanging up the phone.


	10. Chapter 10

"You are incredibly stupid, _Andrew Harrison_ ," Violet practically growled at him.

Andrew looked down towards the floor as he shut the door to the guest house. Even though his sister stood almost half a foot shorter than him, the look she gave him when she was disappointed made him feel much smaller.

"Look, I-"

"You are endangering our lives spending time with him," Violet spoke rapidly, pacing back and forth throughout the room.

"I think you're exaggerating a bit..."

Violet glared daggers at him.

"Certain events still need to happen! We can't do anything until we ensure that you and I will be born. Which means Mom and Dad need to get together. They won't get together if Gwen is still in the picture. And I know it sucks, but Harry needs a reason to murder Gwen. Why would you tell Da-- Peter that you would help cure Harry? You know you can't change that part of the timeline.” Violet fought to control her voice.

Andrew sat down on the couch and let out a breath he didn't know he had been holding in. "I know I can't actually help cure him."

"Then what's the point of all this?" Violet asked, throwing her hands up in the air.

"I don't want anyone else to die. This isn't... easy for me," Andrew said. "I understand what has to happen, Vi. It's just that, I want him to-"

"-like you? Is that what this is about?" Violet had relaxed a bit, sitting on the couch opposite from him.

"I failed Dad so many times. _Too_ many times."

"You don't have anything to feel guilty for, Andrew."

"I know," Andrew nodded, "but I have a second chance. I don't have to kill anybody this time around. And what I'm doing, helping Peter, you don't have to worry. I'm not going to mess anything up."

"You don't know that," Violet groaned. "We need to be more careful okay?"

Andrew drew his eyebrows together. "What do you mean 'we'?"

Violet bit her bottom lip and stayed silent.

"Vi?"

"Okay, look. I realize now it was a mistake. I thought someone was breaking into the mansion and I followed them and I ended up running into Harry." Violet stood up and started pacing again. "We ended up talking a bit," she admitted.

"Wait- someone broke in? What happened?"

Violet told the story about the woman in black. Finding out it was Felicia, and about staying with Harry for the next couple hours. 

Andrew pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. "Let me get this straight, you just chewed me out for spending time with Peter, and you did the exact same thing with Harry?"

"You didn't see him though! I couldn't just leave him like that. He had just found out he was dying," she explained.

"Peter's uncle died recently, _and_ he blames himself for Gwen's father dying," Andrew bit back.

"Okay, okay." Violet drummed a finger thoughtfully on her chin. "We just can't have any more contact with them until Mom and Dad get together."

"No," Andrew shook his head.

"What do you mean 'no'?" Violet crossed her arms.

"I mean that I'm going through with what I told Peter I was going to do. We don't have to cut them out of our lives. And I'm not going to," Andrew said with finality. He also thought it was better not to mention that he didn't want to cut Gwen out either.

"You're going to mess everything up," she moved towards the front door, "and then you're going to have to be the one to put things back on track."

Andrew shrugged. "If it comes to that, I will."

Violet shook her head and left without another word. Andrew decided to get some real sleep that didn't involve sitting upright in a chair all night.

The next couple days were spent in stony silence. Violet was gone most of the day, but at night she would come home just to sleep. On the second day, Violet had left before Andrew had even woken up. This suited Andrew just fine, because he had woken up to a text from Gwen, asking him if he would like to grab some coffee with her, which he eagerly replied to.

It was almost noon when Andrew met up with Gwen at a small cafe about a block away from the Korean Restaurant he accidentally met her in last time.

"Andrew, hey!" Gwen waved when she saw Andrew approaching. She was wearing a simple grey cardigan and, despite the warm weather, had a white polka dot scarf wrapped around her neck.

"Gwen, nice to see you again," he smiled. 

Gwen took a quick look around the cafe. "This place is pretty packed. Do you just want to buy our coffees and walk around?"

"Yeah, sounds good," Andrew shrugged. He ordered himself a coffee and couldn't help but laugh when Gwen put her order in.

"What?" she tilted her head to the side and pressed her lips together to hold back a smile.

"Six sugars? Really?"

Gwen narrowed her eyes at him. "Don't knock it if you haven't tried it."

They both grabbed their coffees and headed out into the city. 

"Here, try some, I haven't sipped it yet," Gwen held her cup out to him.

Andrew quirked an eyebrow. "Are you sure you want my germs on your cup?"

"Germs I can handle," she rolled her eyes.

Andrew took a sip and wrinkled his nose. "This tastes like a liquid cavity," he laughed, handing it back to her. 

"You really don't like it?" her eyebrows shot up in surprise.

"Nah. My brother would have liked it though, he lived off of sugar," Andrew paused. The memory of his brother hit him like a brick. It wasn't like Violet and he had forgotten about him, but it was easier not to talk about it. How everyone they loved all died within minutes. Harry and Felicia had been the worst, actually seeing them die. At least they didn't have to see their father or brother perish.

"Would have?" Gwen asked quietly.

"My uh- my whole family other than my sister Violet, they're all gone." Murdered, more like it. His brother, father, Aunt May, even his grandparents were killed. His mother... there was nothing left of her in Scarlet. "I don't like to talk about it," he shook his head because she could ask the question he saw forming on her face.

"I'm sorry to hear that. I lost my father," she said.

Andrew nodded solemnly. They walked quietly for another minute or two. Dead relatives were definitely a conversation killer.

His phone buzzed and he suppressed a groan as he took it out; he did not want to deal with Violet's disapproving lectures at this moment. When he saw Peter was calling he basically sighed in relief.

"One second," Andrew said to Gwen as he answered his phone. "Hey, Peter." Gwen threw him a questioning glance, but then seemed preoccupied by peeling the top layer off the foam coffee cup.

"Hey! I think now is a good time to go pay a visit to Harry. I'm free for the next couple of hours while my aunt is at work, and I asked him to come meet me at my house." Peter sounded both excited and nervous at the same time.

"Yeah, sure," Andrew answered. He was bummed out that he was going to have to cut having coffee with Gwen short, but he had made a promise to help Peter.

"Cool. I'll leave the suit in my garage. I'll text you when you should come introduce yourself, maybe you can swing in through a window or something?"

Andrew chuckled. "A window? I'll just knock on the front door." Gwen arched an eyebrow at him, opened her mouth as if she were going to say something, then decided not to and went back to peeling her cup.

"That's not nearly as cool," Peter complained. "As long as you demonstrate something that proves your powers..."

"Don't worry, I'll think of something. Be there soon."

"Okay. Also, Harry said he'd be here in like twenty minutes, so..."

"I'll hurry," Andrew said before hanging up.

"Do I want to know why Peter wants you to sneak in through the window?" Gwen gave him a questioning smirk.

"I- what- no!" Andrew threw a scandalized look at her. "There's something I need to uh- it's nothing like what you think- I just have to-"

Gwen put her hand on his arm to stop him. "I'm just messing with you. Both you and Peter are so funny when you can't stop rambling."

Andrew tried not to frown when she took her hand off of his arm. "I have to go. Shoot me a text next time you want to grab some coffee. Or anything really. It doesn't have to be coffee." Andrew started backing up the other way, the way towards Peter's house. "Maybe lunch or something."

"Maybe," Gwen smiled. 

Andrew decided to ignore the way her smile made him feel.

XXX

It took roughly ten minutes for Andrew to get to Peter's house. He slipped into the garage, and saw the plastic bag on top of the tool bench. Andrew shook his head; if anyone else had decided to go into this garage for any reason they would most likely be able to tell what suit was in the plastic bag without opening it. Then again, he was the only one other than Peter that ever went into this garage.

He quickly took off his shirt and pants and slipped the suit on over his boxers. It was a little tight on him, with him being a couple inches taller than Peter was, but it would work for the short amount of time he was going to be in it. He put his pants, shirt, and hoodie on over the suit, so the neighbors wouldn't see him leaving the garage and waited for Peter's text. There were two empty Snicker's wrappers on the floor, and Andrew kicked at them with his foot.

Fifteen minutes later Peter texted him to come into his house. Andrew put the mask on with his hood over it and knocked on Peter's front door. This felt so surreal for him. 

Peter was quick to answer the door. "Hey, uh, _Spider-man_ , come in."

Andrew rolled his eyes under the mask as he walked through the doorway. He quickly took the hoodie off. Peter showed him to the living room, which was basically the first room the small hallway led to. It might not look good on Peter's part if 'Spider-Man' knew his way around his house.

Harry's eyebrows shot up as Andrew walked into the living room. He had his arms crossed over his chest and was wearing a loose fitting black shirt. Andrew tried to not let his eyes linger on the green tinted sores that were already starting to fester on his skin.

"You don't know Spider-Man, yet you can get him to make house calls?" Harry turned to Peter, his tone was teasing, yet his body language showed differently.

"If people knew that he knew me, his life would be in danger," Andrew said, plopping down on the couch. "They could hurt him to find out information about me, _or_ they could ask him to request a 'house call' with me, which is by far much worse."

Harry narrowed his eyes, but uncrossed his arms and relaxed a little.

"So did Peter tell you why we're all here today?" Harry asked, sitting in the chair opposite from the couch. Peter sat in the other chair next to Harry.

"You want my blood."

Harry smiled and nodded at Peter before turning back towards Andrew. "I _need_ it. This disease that killed my father, it's affecting me much quicker than it did him. If I could self heal, it would save my life. I refuse to go out like he did."

"I'm sorry to hear that this is happening to you; Peter told me as much as he could. There's only one thing, Mr. Osborn."

"What's that?" Harry asked apprehensively.

"Peter and I talked about the risks of what could happen if I gave you my blood-"

"-I don't _care_ about the risks. You can't just deny me this in fear for my health, I'm already dying," Harry ground out, leaning forward.

Andrew waited a few seconds before starting again. Peter was nervously biting on his bottom lip. "I never said I wasn't going to give you my blood."

Harry raised his eyebrows in disbelief. "Really?"

"Yes, but we have to test it first. We need to make sure it's not going to kill you, or worse. We want to be thorough, make sure we are compatible, and then we can give you my blood."

Harry began anxiously bouncing one of his legs, seemingly without notice. 

"It's the best we can do, Har. It would kill me if something happened to you because of something we could have prevented," Peter said.

"Right," Harry said the word slowly, "Pete, can you get me a glass of water?"

"Uh yeah- sure Har," Peter practically jumped up from his chair. Andrew rolled his eyes again, pre-goblin Harry could be so dramatic.

As soon as Peter left the room, Harry turned towards Andrew and spoke quickly. "Look, I know Peter told you to test everything first because he cares about my health and everything, but I can handle it. We don't need to wait."

"I'm not going to be responsible for killing you," Andrew said.

Harry glared at him. "I'm already dying."

"My blood could do even more damage." Andrew stood up, his voice became low and serious. "Your friend tracked me down and made me promise to do whatever I could to save you. I told him I would. He just wants you safe. You should show him a little more gratitude."

Harry stood up, and looked as if he were about to argue back. He opened his mouth and closed it, and comprehension seemed to dawn on his face. Harry gave the smallest nod to Andrew, looking like he'd rather die. Andrew smirked under the mask knowing that that small gesture was rare coming from Harry Osborn, and he was the one that got him to realize that they were right.

Peter came into the room again, lightening the tone of the room immediately. "Here, Har," Peter passed him the glass of water. He looked between them, and Andrew sat back down on the couch as Peter took his previous spot.

"Thanks," Harry said. His hand was shaking badly as he sipped the water. Just as he went to sit down as well, the glass slipped right from his hand.

Andrew quickly flung out a small strand of webbing and caught the glass, pulling it right into his hand. Harry looked genuinely shocked.

"You alright?" Andrew asked him, setting the unbroken glass onto the coffee table.

"Uh- yeah, I-" Harry sat down, "-it's getting worse. But, I understand that you two want to be able to test everything first."

"It'll be fine. We will figure this out," Peter gestured to Andrew. 

"I didn't say thanks for what you did, Pete. It means a lot to me, and you know I don't say things like this often," Harry laughed unhumorously, "but you really are my best friend. Setting this up for me, I owe you one."

Peter sniffed and rolled his eyes. "You don't owe me anything Harry."

Harry looked at Andrew again and then to Peter.

Andrew cleared his throat and got up from the coach. He could tell they wanted to talk more privately, so he found a way to excuse himself for a few minutes. "You mind if I grab myself a drink, Peter?"

"Sure, yeah go right ahead." Peter gestured towards the kitchen. "Sorry for the limited choices," he added.

Andrew opened up the fridge. Milk, cranberry juice, and Dr. Pepper. He grabbed the Dr. Pepper, pulling up the mask just enough, and took a couple sips before pulling the mask back down. He could hear the other two talking to each other in low voices, but tuned them out for now.

Violet didn't know what she was talking about. Sure, they had to be careful about what they did or said up until a certain point, but it wasn't like he was stupid. He knew that there were some events that had to happen in order for Peter and Mary Jane to still get together. They were going to need Stryker to come to them in order to destroy him before he took their family to that island; their mother, Harry, Felicia. 

He couldn't help wanting to spend time with these people before everything went to hell. Peter and Harry were still friends, Gwen was alive, and Mary Jane was happy and living her life. He wasn't too sure about Felicia, as Violet was the only one of them who had any kind of visual on her since they came to this time. If Violet wanted to spend most of her time cooped up in the Osborn guesthouse, then that was on her. 

Andrew took another quick sip of Dr. Pepper. It seemed Peter and Harry were talking louder again, so he decided he'd pop back in there in a minute. They would discuss when they could work on the blood cure, and then he would go. Not before leaving Peter's suit in the garage, that it.

"I can't believe this. This is- I don't even know what- unbelievable!" Andrew heard Harry practically shout from the living room. He made sure the mask was covering his face again before he entered the room before--

Harry was standing near the edge of the room with both hands on his head. His eyes were wide and mouth open in disbelief, but when he noticed Andrew had entered the room, his mouth snapped shut. Harry was the least concerning thing to Andrew at this time though, because _Peter was crawling on the ceiling!_

No, no, no! This was NOT good at all. This never happened in the original timeline. Harry was not supposed to find out about Peter this way.

"What?" was all that Andrew managed to get out of his mouth. Peter jumped to the floor, smiling sheepishly at Andrew. 

"I- I had to tell him. He's my best friend," Peter shrugged. Andrew was glad to see that Peter at least had the decency to look guilty.

"There are no secrets between us," Harry smirked at Andrew. "You can't blame him for wanting to tell his best friend. It _is_ interesting to know that there are two of you."

Andrew didn't respond to Harry. Instead he looked towards Peter, the angry expression unseen behind his mask. "What was the point of me doing this if you were just going to go and tell him anyways? You wanted to protect your identity."

"I know," Peter agreed. "It was a kind of spur of the moment thing."

"So," Harry drawled, looking towards Andrew, "do I get to know who you are too?"

"No." Peter and Andrew answered at the same time.

Peter was supposed to keep his identity a secret! It was the main factor as to why Harry felt so betrayed by him and killed Gwen. Harry might not even become the Goblin now.

Andrew paused. _Harry might not even become the goblin_. It wasn't like that was a bad thing. Maybe he hadn't messed up quite as bad as he thought. Maybe he could prevent all the bad things that happened to them, and find a way for Peter and Mary Jane to meet. Maybe he could save Gwen.

"Well, I'm going to need your number at least. I can get ahold of you two when the labs at Osborn are unoccupied." Harry held his phone out to Andrew, who quickly punched in his number and gave it back.

"If my blood doesn't work, we can always use his as a back-up," Peter said to Harry. "That was the original plan."

"Better odds for me, I suppose." Harry said, keeping his eyes on Peter. "Thank you for being honest with me."

"Of course, Har," Peter grinned. "Just... you can't tell anyone else."

"I'm not an idiot," sniffed Harry. 

Andrew shuffled awkwardly. Violet was going to be so mad at him when she found out what happened today. He was going to have to explain to her how this could be a good thing though, if it works out in their favor.

"Well, it was good to see you again, Peter. Nice to meet you, Mr. Osborn." Andrew said as he made his way towards the front door, pulling his hoodie back on.

"Any friend of Peter's is a friend of mine. Call me Harry."

Andrew nodded once before leaving.

He had to figure out this mess before there was a chance that he and his sister were erased from existence.


	11. Chapter 11

Several weeks had passed since Peter had told Harry his big secret. At first, he had been worried that his friend would be angry with him for hiding who he was while he was at Oscorp, but Harry had understood.

Andrew still wouldn't talk to him about the whole thing, so Peter stopped bringing it up. It didn’t affect Andrew anyway. 

Harry seemed pleased that there was a "backup" if Peter's blood didn't work. Peter hadn't asked Andrew outright if he could use his blood if Peter's wasn't compatible, but he knew that he could count on him if it came to that. Harry's impatience made Andrew a little snappy. Just four days after their first meeting, Harry had complained that they hadn't come to Oscorp the instant he’d texted them that the lab was clear.

"I mean, we just saw the guy earlier this week. You'd think he'd give us a little time before jumping down our damn throats," Andrew said to Peter as he webbed up a purse thief to the brick building.

Peter laughed, "I _told_ you he was impatient." Peter took the purse from the thief and webbed his arm to the wall just as two women turned the corner, one missing her purse.

"I to-told you that was Spi-Spider-Man," the brunette huffed to the other woman. The other was on the phone with the police from the sound of it.

Peter returned the purse to the woman on the phone. She hung up the phone and practically hugged it.

"Thank you so much Spider-Man!" she said, clutching her bag close to her. She then peered behind Peter, and her eyebrows pulled together. "And you too, whoever you are."

Andrew had his arms crossed, Peter chuckled at his "signature look,” and had his black hood pulled over his face. It didn't hide his whole face, but enough to make him hard to recognize. Little did Andrew know, Peter had already started working on a suit for him.

"Let's get out of here. I need a drink." The brunette said, pulling her away from them. 

"Don't worry about him," Peter gestured to the thief stuck to the wall. “The police will take care of him." Both women waved one last time before leaving.

"Shit... I need a drink too after today.” Andrew nudged Peter with his elbow. Peter shook his head at his friend, secretly hoping he was joking. He didn’t believe in underage drinking.

Andrew was the first of the two to swing up and out of the alley. For a split second, Peter could have sworn he saw a kid standing there staring at him. Eleven or twelve years old, with dark blonde hair. As soon as he saw him, the boy was gone. 

Peter shook his head and left the alley, catching up with Andrew. Even though Andrew didn't talk much, it was nice having another person out here with him. It made it less lonely.

The next two weeks went like clockwork. Peter would wake up in the morning, have breakfast with his aunt before she went to work, and then meet up with Andrew around lunchtime where they would grab a quick snack before scouting the city together. They would separate for several hours before doing another night shift of scouting the city. Peter had offered to help Andrew create a suit on more than one occasion, but he had declined. 

On this Saturday night, the both of them had stopped a few petty crimes, a car thief, and two muggings and dropped off the webbed-up criminals outside the NYPD. Peter felt a buzz in his pocket and checked his phone. It was Harry, again. The lab was apparently open, and he could practically hear Harry anxiously pacing in his office.

"Hey, Harry just texted that the labs are free. Did you want to get started?" Peter asked Andrew, for the fifth time since their meeting with Harry. 

"I just got the text too. I... don't think tonight is going to be a good night. We just spent the last two hours chasing down people, I really need to get some sleep. Tomorrow would be better." Andrew had been spending the last couple weeks sleeping on Peter's floor. The same night that they had met up with Harry, apparently Andrew and his sister had gotten into a huge argument. He would always slip away in the morning before Aunt May found out; Peter didn't want her to worry about him.

Peter nodded. He figured that was what he was going to say. Andrew had a point though; what if they messed something up when they were half awake at the lab. It just seemed like Andrew kept putting off going to Oscorp for another reason.

"Are you, uh, nervous or something about going there? To Oscorp? Because that's where you got the testing done on you?" Peter hesitantly asked. They had just gotten to his house.

"What? No,” Andrew answered, yawning. He plopped forward face first onto Peter's bed. "I'm... just really tired." He repositioned himself so he was facing the ceiling and then shut his eyes, drumming his fingers on his stomach.

"Alright," Peter answered, although he wasn't convinced. "Have you tried talking to your sister yet?"

Andrew grinned in amusement. "Are you getting sick of me camping out in your bedroom?"

"No, no," Peter laughed. "You just seem kind of-"

"I tried talking to her," Andrew cut him off, sitting up. "She doesn't agree with what I'm doing. She doesn't think I should be spending any time with you."

"Because I'm Spider-Man?" Peter quirked an eyebrow. “That seems a little hypocritical, seeing as you and I have practically the same powers." 

Peter told Andrew to explain the situation to Violet. Apparently Violet had a problem with Andrew hanging out with him. She knew that her brother had powers, and Peter gave Andrew permission to tell her his own secret. The plan was that telling her would assure her that Andrew was in good company, but it seemed to have had the opposite effect. When Violet told Andrew she wouldn’t speak to him again if he continued to hang out with Peter, Andrew spent the night at Peter's house. 

The very next day, Andrew had asked Peter to bring him along to scout the city. 

"Mhm," Andrew grimaced. "She says it's dangerous."

"It can be dangerous," he said seriously. 

"Yeah,” Andrew answered monotonously, laying back on the bed.

Having Andrew there to help him protect the city was definitely a positive. They were able to watch each other's backs and it made it much quicker to take down multiple criminals. Besides, if something as dangerous as The Lizard or Electro came back into the city, two super humans were better than one. 

He couldn't help but think he was bringing Andrew along for selfish reasons. Finally, he had someone to open up to, someone who knew exactly what he was going through. Gwen knew about him, but knowing put her in danger. Having a friend who could defend himself against people like The Lizard or Electro was… nice. Peter was almost worried that Violet was going to talk Andrew out of talking to him.

Peter pulled the pillow that was propped up against the bed to the middle of the floor. "Your sister doesn't like me because she believes I'm a bad influence, putting you in dangerous situations."

" _You_ influence _me_?" Andrew rolled his eyes. "You think- what the hell are you doing?"

Peter had his arms crossed behind his head, and was laying in the spot Andrew usually slept in. "Getting ready to sleep."

"On the floor?"

"You need a bed more than I do. Have you seen those dark circles under your eyes?" Peter asked in mock concern. “You look like a raccoon.”

"Dick."

"I'm sleeping on the floor so you can get a good night's rest for once. Don't make me change my mind," he laughed. Andrew mumbled something.

A few minutes passed. Peter was almost positive Andrew had fallen asleep. "Andrew?" he said in a low voice, not wanting to wake him if he _had_ fallen asleep.

"Hmm?"

"If Harry sends us a message tomorrow, will you come with me to Oscorp?"

"Yeah," Andrew replied sleepily.

Peter nodded, relieved. "Ok. It's just that we've already had to reschedule multiple times and tomorrow is Thursday and he has sent a message every Thursday so far. I don't want him to think that I don't think his situation is important."

"He doesn't think that. You're his best friend. He knows you want to help him."

Peter hoped that was true. "So, you’ll come with me tomorrow?"

Andrew waited about five seconds before replying. “Of course."

"Thanks. We're going to be able to find a way to help him, I know it," Peter said. Andrew didn't respond, and Peter figured he had fallen asleep. His phone beeped, alerting him that he had a new voicemail. He'd check it in the morning.

Yeah, Andrew had characteristics that were much different than him, or even other people he kept in touch with: his impulsiveness and sometimes vulgar language for starters. But that didn't keep them from getting along. Peter was just more of a left-brain person, while Andrew was more right-brain. Even though they had only been friends for a month, Peter was confident their friendship would last.

Morning came much sooner than Peter had hoped. He sat up off the floor, momentarily confused as to why he was there, but then remembered. A quick glance at his bed showed that Andrew had gotten up before him and left like he usually did. Peter got dressed and headed downstairs for breakfast.

"Morning, Aunt May.” Peter made himself a bowl of Reese's Puffs cereal. His aunt was at the kitchen table, finishing up her coffee before work.

"Peter.” She looked mildly bothered. “What are your plans today?"

"I thought I'd try getting some pictures for Jameson. Later I might call Harry and hang out,” he shrugged. “Not much.”

"You're not going to have Andrew over today at all?" she asked as she got up to rinse out her coffee mug.

"Oh uh- no- probably not. Why?" he asked. Aunt May was biting her lower lip, practically studying Peter. "What?" he checked his shirt in case something was on it, but it was clean.

Aunt May sat back down at the table. "Peter," she said slowly, "I wasn't going to say anything at first, because I thought maybe it would only be a couple days. But now that it's been a couple weeks, I have to say I am worried."

"About what?" he furrowed his brow, taking large bites of cereal.

"Why has Andrew been sleeping in your room every night?"

"Wha-what?" Peter repeated, trying to sound confused but failing. 

Aunt May sighed. "Is he in some kind of trouble?"

"No, it's not that." Peter knew it was no use to try and hide it any longer. "He and his sister, Violet, aren’t getting along. I don't really know the details, but I'd rather him stay here than the streets."

Aunt May frowned. "I'd rather him be here rather than the streets too, Peter. Should I try talking to Violet? Try to sort this out?"

Peter shook his head. "It won't help. He's already tried talking to her about it.”

She nodded. "Well, let Andrew know he can sleep on our couch if he wants. It would be more comfortable than the floor. And he doesn't have to sneak off every morning either. He can stay for breakfast."

Peter smiled. “All right. I'll let him know, Aunt May." 

"Good. He may be a good influence on you, Peter. You've been coming home with less bruises lately."

Peter cleared his throat awkwardly and got up from the table to put his bowl in the sink. "Well, I'm heading out. I might be out late if I do end up hanging out with Harry."

He hugged his aunt and ran upstairs to grab his camera from his desk. Next to his camera sat the picture of him and Gwen. He had the sudden urge to go and see her; the last time he saw her was at Oscorp when Harry had called off his security.

Things in his life were going pretty well lately. He had befriended someone who had powers like him, his aunt was totally cool with said friend crashing at their house, and tonight he and Andrew would be on their first step to helping Harry. He decided to push his luck and see if there was any chance that Gwen would take him back.

XXX

"Alright, this is the seventh message I've left you Peter," Harry attempted to keep his voice level, "and I can't help but think you and your little friend are ignoring me." He took a sip from his glass of blended scotch whiskey as he paced back and forth through his office. "I read in the newspaper- you know, the Daily Bugle, the one you work for- that there might be another 'Spider-Man' out there. _Obviously_ you and him have been working together, while I'm getting worse. Every. Day."

Harry ended his message and scrolled down to the number that Peter's friend had programmed into his phone as "The Taller Spider-Man.” He scoffed and called the number. It went to voicemail on the third ring. 

"Yup it's me- Harry Osborn again!" his hand started to shake holding his drink. "I sent both of you a text an hour ago and of course I hear nothing back. I'm done waiting," he practically snarled, throwing his now empty glass against the wall, shattering it. "I'm done," he repeated. Harry hung up and tossed his phone onto his desk, running both hands through his hair.

How could Peter do this to him? Did their friendship really mean that little to him? Peter spent most of his time saving random people in the city, but couldn’t make _any_ time to save his friend? His "best friend”? Harry chuckled. This just proved to him that, in the end, he couldn't depend on anybody. He was going to have to find another way to get the cure to his disease.

The spider venom is what created Spider-Man. If Spider-Man wasn't willing to figure out if their blood was compatible, or just _give_ some to him, then he was going to have to go to the original source. The problem was that, to save face, the board had had everything to do with animals destroyed.

Knowing how deceptive and unethical Oscorp has been in the past, mainly a few certain board members, there was no way they had destroyed absolutely everything.

Harry put in his username and began searching through the files only the most senior board members and CEO could look through. There were a lot of different files about the power grid that Oscorp had recently installed in the city. A file titled "Special Projects" got his attention. Harry scrolled over the first couple entries. The first document he opened was information on a previous scientist that worked at Oscorp, Doctor Curtis Connors. Connors had apparently been sent to Ravencroft Institute after Spider-Man had beaten him. He searched around a bit until he got to an entry about all animal projects. He skipped the mammals and reptiles and read through the arachnids and insects entries.

Harry shook his head in disbelief. Apparently Menken had the venom extracted from all of the spiders before they were destroyed. That way they could comply with the lawsuits while keeping the data.

Suddenly a video popped up on the screen titled "Ravencroft Archive,” which stated it had been approved by Harry Osborn. "What the hell?" he mumbled to himself as he opened up the first of several videos.

These people were more despicable than he originally thought. A video showed a man falling to his death right here in his own company! There were some notes stating that several days later, Max Dillon, like Connors, had been sent to Ravencroft. Max had been the employee that was thought to have been killed. Nobody had reported anything and someone was using his name to approve it.

"Warning! Your user access has been revoked!" 

"What? What!" Harry yelled at the screen, trying to log back in. 

Menken came strolling in with a handful of security guards, including the man that had harassed Gwen. Harry's eyes flashed back to the screen, and back to Menken as he put two and two together.

One thing he knew for sure: he was _not_ about to let Menken bury him too.


	12. Chapter 12

"Yup it's me- Harry Osborn again!" Pause. "I sent both of you a text an hour ago and of course I hear nothing back. I'm _done_ waiting." The sound of something breaking. "I'm done," Harry repeated before ending the message.

Andrew played the message one more time before deleting it. He thought there had to be a way to save everyone, but Violet was right. There were still some events that needed to happen to ensure that he and his sister were born. Peter telling Harry his secret identity as Spider-Man had really thrown him through a loop.

He couldn't save everyone.

So, as mad as his sister was at him, she helped him figure out damage control. Andrew was going to spend as much time with Peter as he could to ensure that Peter didn't start on the cure for Harry's disease. It wasn't that Andrew didn't want to be spending so much time with Peter- his father- but he hated having to _lie_ to him about it. Andrew had never seen him this carefree before. It wasn't fair that they were going to have to take that away from him.

Harry Osborn had to become the Goblin. Gwen Stacy had to die.

From the sound of the last message Harry had sent him last night, he was about to get the cure his own way, which would ultimately be downfall. 

Andrew kept fidgeting with the ends of his sleeves as he walked to the lake by the bridge. Gwen wanted him to meet her there. He kept debating with himself whether or not he should go, but she might not have much more time. Violet wouldn't approve, but this was the one thing he hadn't told her about. 

Gwen was already there, staring down at a passing boat. Her mint green jacket was hard to miss against the black railing. Andrew hesitated, having second thoughts, but she had had already turned around and seen him.

"Hey," she greeted him with a hug, which he returned.

"Gwen," he smiled, "what's up?"

She was looking extremely pleased with herself, her hands practically twitching with excitement. "Remember how I told you about how I applied for that scholarship to go to Oxford University in England?"

"You got it," Andrew answered right away.

"How'd you know?" She tilted her head.

Andrew let out an amused laugh. "Well, besides the fact that you're literally bouncing with excitement, I told you that you'd get it," he smiled.

"That you did," she said. "I had my interview this morning, and they just called me back an hour ago. There's an early summer program, but it starts in like four days. They're going to pay for my plane ticket to get there, but I'd have to leave tonight."

"Tonight?" Andrew blinked in surprise. "I mean, that's kind of soon, isn't it? How are you going to get everything packed? What about saying goodbye to everyone?"

"I'm just bringing a small suitcase for now. My mom will send the rest in a couple days. I'm having a late lunch with my family, but as for everyone else? I kind of pushed away a lot of people away after my father died. And then Peter and I kept going back and forth about wanting to be together. The point is, I don't really keep in touch with a lot of people here anymore and I'm hoping I can start over in England."

"Am I the only other person besides your family that gets a goodbye?" Andrew gave a half smile. 

"Well..." She looked at the ground for a moment. "I was debating on whether or not I should go see Peter. I feel like I owe him that, but it might be too hard for me. For the both of us."

Andrew quirked an eyebrow. "So you're just going to leave without telling him?"

"No," Gwen said quickly. "No, I just, I'm going to call him. I actually saw him earlier today, right before my interview in fact."

"You did?"

She nodded, not giving him any more details. Instead, she was looking to the distance when confusion crossed her face.

"Harry?"

Andrew turned to see Harry Osborn pacing angrily forward towards them. He angled his body to shield Gwen, but he had no doubt who Harry was here to see. The move did not go unnoticed, as Harry's eyes flickered to Gwen, and then back to Andrew. 

"So, you're the other one?" Harry sneered at Andrew. There were dark rings under his eyes, his usual smoothed down hair was in disarray.

"How'd you find me?" Andrew asked. 

"I tracked your phone number," Harry glowered at him, "but that doesn't matter right now. What matters is the fact that you and Peter lied to me!" he growled.

"We never lied to you,” Andrew said, taking a step forward. That was a lie. "We told you we needed to test our blood to see if it was compatible. We never said we weren't going to help you." Another lie. 

"It's been _weeks_ ," Harry said through his teeth. "You're just some stranger, so I get it if you don't want to help me. But Peter... Peter is my best friend. I can see now that I can't even rely on him for help when I need it."

Andrew tried not to flinch at that. Peter wasn't lying to Harry, he actually thought Andrew had plans to help try and cure him. "He's been busy. He'll help you, he just has other things going on right now."

"What's going on? What's wrong Harry?" Gwen said, stepping out from behind Andrew. 

Harry closed his eyes and rubbed his temples, his hands visibly shaking.

"Peter said something to me earlier this morning, Harry. He told me what was happening to you, and that he wanted to help. He wants to help," Gwen repeated.

"It's too late for that," Harry shook his head. "I've just been kicked out of my _own_ company because they framed me for someone's death. The kicker is, he isn't dead. They're holding him at Ravencroft."

"That's horrible, Harry," Gwen frowned, “Have you told the police?"

"Oscorp is a multi-billion dollar company. They know how to bury things they don't want to be seen," Harry scoffed.

"Just give us a little more time," Andrew said. 

"We're out of time!" Harry yelled. Andrew made sure nobody had stopped to listen to them, but there were no other people in the vicinity. "What don't you get?! I no longer have access to any of my labs."

"I don't know what to tell you then," Andrew shrugged. "What can we do?"

Harry dug into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small case. Andrew suspected what it was even before Harry tossed it to him; a syringe and hypodermic needle. 

"Give me a sample of your blood. That's all you have to do. I'll do whatever I need to do by myself. Obviously I can't count on either of you."

"Harry..." Gwen said at the same time Andrew answered, "No."

"Excuse me?" Harry looked at him in disbelief.

"I'm not just giving you my blood," Andrew shook his head.

Gwen stared at the case and then back to Andrew. "Am I missing something here? Why do you need Andrew's blood?"

"How much do you want?" Harry growled.

"You just lost your company," Andrew said slowly. "Do you really think the people that framed you are going to give you access to your account?" Andrew took the syringe out of the case and crushed it in his palm. "You're not getting my blood."

"You son of a bitch!" Harry lunged at Andrew. Gwen rushed to Harry to hold him back, but in his rage, Harry shoved Gwen back roughly causing her to fall over the safety railing. 

Andrew leapt forward onto the railing and shot a web out, instantly catching her arm. The fifteen foot fall would have definitely hurt her. She grabbed the webbing with her other hands and looked up at Andrew with wide eyes. He easily pulled her up over the railing, noticing that she was shaking.

"Harry..." Gwen said sadly, watching Harry's retreating figure. 

"Let him go," Andrew told her, pulling off the webbing from her jacket.

"He needs help," she whispered. She still seemed like she was in shock.

Andrew sighed. "And he'll get it. Not like this though," he pointed the the crushed syringe on the ground. "I'll get you home though, you need to get ready for your trip."

The shock seemed to go away with the mention of her trip. "I need to get home. I'm leaving tonight for England a-and... and you're like Peter?"

Andrew nodded. Gwen let out a disbelieving laugh.

"I sure know how to pick them," she whispered to herself. "Peter knows about you?"

"Yeah. We've been working together."

"That's what Harry meant by 'the other one.’”

Andrew picked the empty syringe up and disposed of it in a nearby garbage can. "If you want, we can talk about it later. You have my number, you can message me when you get to England.” He forced a smile. "For now, let's get you home."

Gwen was silent on the way back to her house. She gave Andrew a quick hug and a goodbye before walking inside. 

He had walked just ten steps away from the door as his phone began to ring. Peter was calling him. Andrew answered and Peter was rushing out sentences about coins and Roosevelt. Before he could even get a word out, Peter asked him to meet him at an abandoned train tunnel entrance near the construction site on 45th and Derby Lane. Andrew agreed and hung up the phone.

The train tunnel entrance only took about ten minutes to get there - by swinging there, that is. Peter had a red beanie on with a black hoodie similar to the one Andrew was wearing. He was rocking back and forth on his heels when Andrew walked up to him.

"Hey!" Peter beamed. "Sorry to call you down here like this."

"It's all good, although I didn't really understand everything you were saying on the phone," Andrew said.

Peter set down a black bag he was holding and pulled out several gold coins from his pocket. "I found these in my Dad's old briefcase he left me. You don't need to hear the whole story, but I think he wanted me to find these. I did some digging and these coins are used specifically for the Roosevelt Train Station. He- my Dad- had these hidden in a calculator, so they must mean something.” He pocketed them again. 

"Ok," Andrew shrugged. "Let's go check it out."

"Really?" Peter looked surprised. "I didn't think you'd want to... but I was hoping you would," he amended when Andrew raised an eyebrow. "Oh! One more thing, before I forget," Peter picked the black bag up and handed it to Andrew.

Andrew opened up the bag and stared at the item in his hands.

"I thought that you could use one of your own, you know, if you're going to be saving the city and all that with me," Peter scratched his arm. "You're always wearing black, so I figured I'd use that in the color scheme."

Andrew held the suit out in front of him to get a good look at it. The webbing pattern was similar to Peter's suit, but the coloring was different. Where Peter's suit was red, the fabric was a dark cobalt blue color. The rest of the suit was black, where Peter's had normally been blue, and the eyes had a blue tint to them. The last actual suit Andrew had was when he was ten years old, and his father had destroyed that one.

"This is... really cool, dude," Andrew admired the suit some more. "Thanks, for real."

"Awesome," Peter grinned. 

Andrew folded up the suit and put it back in the black bag. The two of them headed into the abandoned station.

"You know," Peter began, "now that you have your own suit, you're going to need your own secret identity nickname." He took out his phone, checked it, and slipped it back in his pocket.

Andrew rolled his eyes. "I'm not too worried about people knowing who I am. The people that I do talk to can handle themselves in a fight."

The tunnels were dark without any natural light. If it wasn't for their enhanced senses, they wouldn't be able to properly see. Peter had his flashlight out anyways.

"What about your sister?"

Andrew paused. Peter still didn't know about her. "Yeah... you're right. Have any ideas? I'm sure 'Spider-Man 2' is out of the picture."

Peter snorted, "yeah right."

"The Tarantula?"

"If you want people to think you're covered in hair," Peter laughed.

Andrew elbowed him. "Well, if you have anything better, be my guest."

Part of the tunnel had caved in, letting in a little bit of the light from the outside. There was just enough space for them to squeeze through. 

"Spider... spider-bite... the dark spider, no... web something... web weaver..." Peter kept mumbling to himself trying to figure out a name.

Andrew paused at hearing his alias from when he was ten years old, 'Web Weaver'. The name sounded lame to him now, but back then he loved putting on his suit and saving people. So much had changed since then.

"We'll think of something," Peter checked his phone again, his face unreadable, before putting it away.

"You have somewhere else you have to be?" Andrew asked.

Peter kicked a broken piece of track aside. "No, I- do you remember me talking about my kind-of-not-so-ex-girlfriend Gwen?" Andrew nodded. "This morning she had an interview for Oxford and she told me she'd let me know if she got in or not. I'm just anxious to hear what happened. If she gets it, she moves to England and I'll only have a couple months left to see her, but she'll be happy. If she doesn't, then she stays here but she'll be unhappy."

"That sucks." Andrew wasn't quite sure what to answer to that. 

"Hey, there's some light up there," Peter nodded forward, saving Andrew from having to come up with something else to say.

They both hopped up onto the platform that was labeled 'Roosevelt.’ There was one single turn style, and Peter had immediately walked up to it, put one of the golden coins in and walked on through.

Nothing happened.

"I don't understand," Peter said.

Andrew looked around the dimly lit room. "Maybe the coins were for something else?" There was a sudden grinding noise behind him and he walked towards the tracks that were-- spreading apart! "Peter, come check this out!"

A full sized subway train car emerged from the tracks. Peter and Andrew looked at each other in disbelief. The lights inside the train all lit up just as the doors to the train opened.

"After you," Andrew gestured to the train. Peter crept forward, observing every little thing they passed. Whoever had set this up obviously didn't want anyone else knowing about it at the time; it looked like some underground lab that ran secret experiments. Andrew shuddered at the thought, reminding him of the time he had spent on Stryker's island.

A small section of the train had several vials of liquids all under what Andrew could only assume was a blacklight. There was also a small glass container that had cobwebs inside; whatever had inhabited that container was no longer there. 

"Whoa," Peter said loudly.

"What?" Andrew whipped his head up from the glass container, nearly knocking over one of the tiny glass vials.

"The blacklight is having like an opposite effect on your eyes. They're normally like... glowing neon blue, but with the blacklight they're just brown."

"That's what color they used to be before all this happened," Andrew said, moving on to check out a small set of surgical equipment.

Peter tapped his chin, "I got it. Your code name can be 'Luminol.’”

"Luminol?" Andrew frowned in confusion. "What? What's that?"

"It's a chemical that exhibits chemiluminescence when mixed with an oxidizing agent. It's used to find blood at crime scenes, but it glows a bright neon blue color."

Andrew bit his lip. “Maybe."

Peter moved on to a computer next, the words “Download Complete" on the screen. Andrew picked up what looked like a stress ball and started tossing it in the air, leaning against the wall as Peter sat in the computer chair.

A video started playing, and Andrew recognized the person that popped up on the screen: Richard Parker. Peter had pocketed his red beanie and gone still, listening to the video.

They both silently listened to the video. Andrew set the stress ball back on the counter. Some of the things that Richard Parker - his grandfather - were saying, Andrew had already known, but other things came as a surprise to him, and apparently Peter.

Norman Osborn and Richard Parker worked together. Oscorp was trying to weaponize his research. Richard did not want his work going to biological weapons, so Norman had falsified evidence against him. Richard had secretly implanted his own DNA into the spiders. _Only Richard's bloodline can continue the experiments with the spiders_. The video ended with Richard saying how much he loved his son and that he was going to have to disappear for awhile.

Peter sat in the chair, staring at the now blank screen on the computer. "Everything that they were saying about my father was a lie. This is the proof I needed to see."

Andrew cleared his throat. "You were right about the coins he had left for you. They were tokens for the train; he wanted you to see this video."

"I can't believe he used his own DNA on the spiders. Did he plan for this to happen? Did he know what was going to happen to me?"

Andrew shook his head. "Nobody knows what's going to happen in the future."

"Wait a second... how was the venom able to work on you? After my father passed away, I'm the only one that it would work on." Peter looked up at Andrew from the chair.

"No idea," Andrew said a little too quickly. "Maybe I got lucky?"

"Hmm," Peter tapped the arm rest repeatedly and then took his phone out. "New voicemail? How did I miss her call?" Peter put the phone up to his ear and listened. His face fell further and further every couple seconds.

"What happened?" Andrew shifted from one foot to the other.

Peter ran a hand through his hair. "Gwen, she uh- she's leaving for England. Tonight. She didn't want to tell me in person."

Andrew whistled. "Damn, that's kind of..." he trailed off when he saw how upset Peter looked.

I need to see her before she leaves. Maybe I can change her mind or- or maybe I don't know but I need to see her," Peter was practically panicking.

"Yeah, I understand. Do what you need to do," Andrew nodded his head towards the exit. Peter gave him a grateful smile before hopping out of the train car, and running towards the exit.

Andrew slumped back against the wall again. Tonight was apparently the night it was going to happen, one way or another. His father had told them stories about what happened, about how he told the girl he loved he would move to England to be with her. But that could not happen. There was no other way.

"Dammit!" Andrew punched the wall, his hand going right through the frame. The metal had cut his arm, but he paid it no attention. It would heal soon. 

He sent a quick text to his sister, **"Peter's going to meet Gwen now. She's leaving for England tonight."**

Her text back came within seconds. **"TONIGHT?! Where are you I'm coming to meet you ASAP!"**

Andrew texted her back his location and made his way out of the train tunnel. By the time he made it to the exit, the sunlight was nearly gone. 

" _There_ you are!" she stalked towards him. "Andrew, this is not good. Why is she leaving so early? What happens if Peter goes with her? He cannot go to England!" Violet began biting on her finger nail.

Andrew stared at the ground, unsure of what to say. He felt as if this was his fault; it was his fault. If he would have stayed away from everyone, then time would have repeated itself. Tonight was going to be horrible either way. Either Peter goes with Gwen to England, which would in turn erase his sister and him from the timeline, or else everyone he cared about was about to have their lives turned upside down.

"I know I fucked up, Vi," Andrew let go of a breath he didn't realize he was holding in. "I just wanted to spend time with him. He doesn't know who I am, he doesn't know what I've done to our family. I know that Dad felt different about me ever since I got back from that island, after all those people I killed. All I saw in his eyes when he looked at me was disappointment."

"Andrew..." Violet softened her voice, "you know that's not true."

He swallowed hard, not wanting Violet to hear his voice shake. "He was too good of a person to say it out loud, but I always knew."

"Dad loved you," she countered.

"Yeah, he might have loved me," Andrew chuckled sarcastically, "but he didn't like me. I just wanted to know how that felt, and now I do because he says we're friends. This Peter has never looked at me like I was the danger, or like I was going to snap any second," the words rushed out of his mouth. "And it sucks because I am _constantly_ lying to him."

Violet stared at him in shock. Andrew swore inwardly; he shouldn't have said any of that out loud. She already worried about him and this was not going to help.

"Even though I don't agree with your decision to associate yourself with our teenage father, I understand why you did. If that's truly how you think Dad felt about you, I'm sorry we didn't see it sooner. _You_ have to understand though, he loved us both equally - no don't try and cut me off - he did," Violet stomped her foot.

When Andrew didn't say anything, Violet continued. "All of us were affected by that island. Some in more ways than others, but still. Dad had some pretty dark things happen to him in his life, but no matter what he was there for us."

Andrew nodded to let her know he had listened to her words. Luckily for him, she knew he wasn't usually one to talk about feelings or emotions, so she took that as the end of that conversation, for now.

"What's that?" Violet pointed to the black bag dangling from Andrew's hand, clearly trying to change the subject.

"Oh uh, D- Peter made me a suit," he chuckled. "He wanted me to keep my identity safe when I was helping him in the city."

Andrew took the suit out of the bag and held it out to show her. Violet's mouth gaped in awe as she inspected the fabric.

"He made this for you?"

"Yup," he said, popping the P.

She studied the suit for a minute before handing it back to Andrew, who stuffed it back in the black bag. Andrew knew she wanted to say something, from the unsure look on her face, but whatever she was about to say was lost in the next moment.

Every light in the city began shutting off. Everything. Cars began slamming into each other when the traffic lights went down. People were screaming in the distance and there seemed to be some sort of electrical storm bouncing off of one of the skyscrapers. 

Andrew's phone buzzed and he knew it was Peter before opening his phone.

**Need backup. Follow the electricity -P**


	13. Chapter 13

There was no alternative; he had to help Peter. Andrew texted a quick response saying he was just outside of the train tunnel and that he would be there shortly. He pocketed his phone and pulled the mask out of his bag.

The electricity bouncing off the skyscrapers made it obvious who they would be facing tonight and with an event this big, Peter was probably right that Andrew should be hiding his identity. There was no time to change into the whole suit, so the mask and hoodie would have to suffice for tonight.

"I'm going," Andrew said to Violet.

"I knew you would," she smiled, but it didn't hold for long. "You do realize what has to happen tonight though?"

"Yes," he said in a clipped tone.

Violet stared at him for a moment. "Ok, I'm coming too."

"What? Why?"

She quirked an eyebrow at him and frowned, saying nothing.

_Oh._

Violet was going to be damage control; Gwen Stacy needed to die tonight and in case Harry wasn't there, she was going to make sure it happened. Andrew knew his sister would never want to intentionally hurt anybody, but when it came to family, she would do whatever it took to keep them safe. Andrew was just glad that she volunteered herself to execute the task if need be; he had grown closer to Gwen in the last couple of months.

"Right... well, let's get going." Andrew jerked his head towards the city.

Violet wasn't looking at him, though. She was staring past him. "Look!"

Andrew turned just in time. He jumped back several steps, narrowly avoiding being plummeted by--

"Whoops!" Peter was in his full Spider-man suit. "Sorry about that, just, I'm kind of in a hurry."

Peter wasn't alone. He set down an angry-looking Gwen onto her feet. She immediately started arguing with him about her choices and respecting the decisions she's trying to make.

"No!" Peter said in finality. "It's too dangerous, Gwen. You're not coming. Andrew will be there to back me up, right?" he turned to Andrew.

Andrew shifted his eyes to Violet and then back to Peter. "Of Course."

"Well, I'm coming too. I can do something to help. Tell him, Andrew." Violet's eyes widened with feigned alarm. 

Andrew scrunched up his face in confusion. Then, realizing what Violet was doing, was glad he was wearing his mask.

"Like he said, it's too dangerous,” said Andrew. Violet scowled.

Violet knew that Peter didn't know that she had powers too. If she revealed her powers now, either Peter wouldn't trust them, or he would take all the help he could get and leave Gwen here out of harm's way. By staying behind with Gwen, Violet could make sure Gwen was in the place they needed her to be in.

"You two stay here, we need to go stop him before he hurts more people." Peter pivoted his foot like he was unsure if he really wanted to leave Gwen here. "But, just to make sure you don't try anything..."

Peter shot out two strands of webbing, one towards Gwen and one towards Violet. He had basically made them each a pair of web-handcuffs.

"Peter!" Gwen yelled out indignantly. She immediately snapped her mouth shut and sheepishly looked at Violet. Peter put his palm to his forehead and shook his head.

"It's fine, she can keep a secret," Andrew said quickly, "but we need to go now!"

Peter shouted a quick 'sorry' to Gwen and Violet and swung away from the train tunnels, Andrew close behind him. 

As they got closer to the skyscrapers, the air popped with static from Electro. With a quick look below, the police were already stopping traffic, attempting to prevent further accidents.

"Holy shit," Andrew murmured to himself. Electro's face was lit up nearly ten stories tall on the side of a building, and he was looking right at them.

"There you are, Spider-man." The face blinked. "It looks like you've brought a friend. But I was your friend first!”

Peter dropped down on top of the building across from Electro, while Andrew clung to the side. "It was a misunderstanding, Max!" Peter shouted. "I was trying to help you. Let me help you." 

"You're nothing but a liar, Spider-man,” Electro ground out. Andrew climbed to the top of the building, hopping over the side. "I am going to take my grid back, and everyone will look to me for their electricity!"

"Sorry, Twinkles, but you might as well give up now,” said Andrew. “There's two of us and only one of you.”

" _My_ friend will be here soon," Electro replied mysteriously. “My new, better friend.”

The face suddenly vanished and a surge of blue electricity shot out at Peter, which he narrowly avoided. Andrew squinted at the blue electricity that now seemed to be flying away from them, not because he couldn't see it, but because it seemed so unreal. Electro was the flying blue electricity, he wasn't just throwing it at them.

"He's heading for the grid!" Peter swung forward after Electro. "Race to see who gets there first?" he called after Andrew.

Andrew huffed out a laugh and jumped off the building, shooting out his webbing and zipping forward. He would never take that challenge from Violet since she was the fastest in their family, but he was sure he could beat Peter.

Once again, even in all this danger, it was like a game to them. Swinging through the buildings, and dodging random bursts of electricity from Electro seemed like child's play. Andrew did a double somersault in the air, just missing another blast and Peter whooped excitedly. Electro seemed to buzz louder when he heard the two laughing behind him. 

Peter ended up winning by a couple seconds, though Andrew wouldn't admit it out loud. They both stood on top of a building, overlooking the power grid that Electro seemed so obsessed with. 

"I will not let you take this away from me!" Electro appeared in front of them and shot out several bolts at them, cracking the building under them. 

Peter jumped forward as Andrew jumped down lower on the building. Electro flew straight in front of Peter, swinging a giant electric fist at him.

"Watch out!" Andrew leapt forward without a second thought, taking the full brunt of the swing. The electricity surged through him and he fell to the ground. He quickly got to his feet, still shaking slightly.

Peter was at his side in an instant. "You good?"

"Yeah," Andrew nodded.

"Thanks," Peter said seriously. Andrew just waved his hand as if it were nothing. "Do you think you can distract him while I crack open that water pipeline?"

Andrew nodded, shaking himself off. He swung himself up into the power grid, shooting webs at Electro, who was easily dodging them. Peter was waiting for him to get Electro in front of the pipeline, which was proving difficult. His movements were sluggish after getting electrocuted. He hoped it would wear off soon. 

The next thing Andrew thought of was to use his fear augmentation to possibly incapacitate Electro in front of the pipeline; however he hated using the extra powers that Stryker had given to him. He decided to try a different tactic, when he felt a sudden whoosh next to him, and suddenly Electro was floating in front of the pipeline looking just as confused as Andrew felt. 

Andrew looked around, but no one else was with them. Whatever had happened seemed to be good enough for Peter. He strapped his webbing around the end of the pipeline and cracked it open, causing the water to blast straight for Electro.

"This again, Spidey?" Electro surged his own blast of electricity against the water easily overtaking it, and Peter was thrown backwards. Andrew took this opportunity and swung forward, delivering a kick to Electro's jaw.

"Peter!" Andrew looked down and saw Gwen running up to the scene, Violet close behind her. When Peter heard Gwen's voice, he kicked himself up off the ground and quickly made his way to her.

"What are you two doing here?!" Peter threw his hands up in the air.

Electro was throwing out beams of electricity in retaliation at Andrew, who was both trying to dodge them and listen to what was going on with the others down below.

"You can't just web us up and expect us to stay out of it!" Gwen yelled. "I know these grid specs, I worked at Oscorp! I can reset the system!"

One bolt of electricity got a little too close for Andrew's liking, and he had to practically bend over backwards to avoid it. "Come on, Twinkles, is that all you've got?" Electro opened his mouth and a tunnel of electricity came straight for Andrew who dropped to the ground, missing it by less than an inch.

Andrew was about to swing back upwards to avoid electricity being shot at the others, but Electro stayed put at the top of the power grid, not even making another move. Peter and Gwen were quietly arguing with each other.

"Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha"

The hair stood up on the back of Andrew's neck. He knew that laugh. He and Violet had first heard it when they had snuck out of the house to help people out of a burning building. The goblin had shown up and he had been terrifying back then. 

"What is this now?" Peter stared up at the glider that was circling the power grid. Wherever the glider was flying at that time, Peter kept maneuvering his body to be in front of Gwen. Andrew’s stomach was in knots.

"Ha-ha-ha-ha"

"I told you my friend would be here soon!" Electro yelled to them from the power grid. 

The glider circled the grid once more before slowing to a stop in front of their group. Andrew heard Gwen gasp behind him as she realized who it was. Harry's eyes darted between Peter and Andrew, as if he was trying to figure out who was who. Electro flew down next to Harry, hovering several feet above the ground.

"Harry, what- what happened?" Peter took a step forward, keeping a watchful eye on Electro. Greenish black veins ran down Harry's neck, and his hair looked like he had just got electrocuted.

"Peter," Harry smiled sinisterly. "It looks like I couldn't count on you after all."

"What did you do Harry?" Peter took another step forward. He was next to Andrew now, with Gwen and Violet behind them. 

"You lied to me, Peter. Both of you did." Harry shot a look at Andrew. "In fact, you lied to Max too, which is why I helped him escape."

"You broke him out of Ravencroft?" Peter shook his head in disbelief.

Harry sniffed derisively. "I wasn't going to let the Oscorp board bury him in there like they wanted to do with me."

"Let's get you out of here, Harry. We can help you."

Harry cackled and shook his head. "Help me? Help me?! I've been asking you to help me for weeks! You did this to me, Peter! This is your fault."

"Peter..." Gwen whispered behind them, her voice shaking. She wrapped her hand around Peter's arm as if she wanted to pull him away from Harry.

Harry's head snapped up and his attention went to who was behind them. He tilted his head as he stared at Violet. "You," he growled, clearly recognizing her. His glider moved forward several feet.

"Harry..." Peter warned him, pushing both of the girls back with his arm.

The glider stopped. Harry's eyes darted between Gwen, Andrew, and Peter next, before he smiled maliciously again. "Gwen Stacy. It seems everytime we meet, you're either with Peter or him," he pointed at Andrew.

"Harry, ignore them. Talk to me, ok? I'm your friend. I can help you," Peter said anxiously. If what Harry had said bothered him, Peter didn't let it show.

"I wonder which one of you will mourn her more." Harry smiled and then turned to Electro. "Now, Max!"

Harry's glider shot forward towards Peter and Gwen, while Electro blasted electricity at Andrew. Violet shot her webbing towards Andrew, pulling him out of the way; the move did not go unnoticed by Peter. Electro flew forward, pinning Violet to the ground. He opened his mouth and another tunnel of electricity shot out, electrocuting Violet. She gasped in pain. 

Andrew swung forward, giving Electro a powerful kick in the side, shooting him far into the power grid.

"That... really hurts..." Violet fought to catch her breath. 

"Hell yeah it does," Andrew agreed. 

Peter had Gwen held tight to his chest with one arm, while dodging attacks from Harry through the power grid with his other arm. At one point, Harry managed to hit Peter into one of the poles, but he never once let go of Gwen.

"We need to stop Electro. He's going to hurt a lot more people," Andrew said. "The power needs to be reset in that building," he pointed.

"Lucky for you I researched as much as I could about the power grid while you were off playing hero with Peter," Violet said smugly. 

Suddenly, Peter's body was thrown into the ground beside them and he groaned in pain. There was a deep gash in his arm and without thinking, Andrew shot out a small web to hold the wound together.

"Harry, no!" Peter called out to him. "Andrew, help me!" He jumped up from the ground and swung after Harry.

Electro had made his way back to them after Andrew's kick, throwing multiple electricity bolts at the both of them. Violet jumped into the air, easily dodging all of the attacks. Andrew shot more webs at him, which Electro kept hitting them out of his way. The power grid was making him more powerful.

"Go, help him!" Violet said to Andrew as she flipped backwards into the air, Electro flying right past her. "Make sure _Peter_ stays safe. I've got this."

Andrew nodded, knowing his sister could handle Electro; she was much quicker than him. He looked around, trying to spot where Peter had gone, and saw two figures under the bridge across from the power grid. He swung there quickly, wondering where Gwen had gone.

Harry and Peter were fighting next to one of the pillars under the bridge. Peter looked like he was frantically trying to climb upwards, but Harry kept fighting him, breaking his webs with the glider and some high tech blade in his hand.

"Andrew!" Peter called to him. "Get Gwen, hurry!"

Shit.

"You need help!" Andrew yelled. Harry had him pinned to the side of the wall, Peter was fighting to keep the blade that Harry was using away from him.

"No, get Gwen! She's hanging from the deck of the bridge--" Peter was cut off by a punch in the face. He swung his head forward, looking like he’d break Harry's nose, but Harry pinned him again, wrapping his hand around the gash on his arm. "--she's hanging on to my webbing, she won't be able to for much longer, HURRY!"

He looked to his right and there Gwen was, hanging off the deck of the bridge, about twenty feet down. Peter was right; she wasn't going to be able to hang on much longer. With every second she was sliding further down the webbing.

_No no no no no! It wasn't supposed to be like this._

He turned around and Violet was making some sort of webbing knot between some of the coils in the power grid all while dodging Electro's attacks.

"Andrew!" Peter's voice brought him back from his thoughts and Andrew swung himself up on the deck of the bridge. Cars were left empty as people had fled the area when Electro was causing his destruction.

He knelt down and peered over the side. "I can't hold on much longer," Gwen said in a strained voice.

Andrew shut his eyes and took a deep breath. 

Letting her die was the same as killing her. He didn't- couldn't be that person anymore. In the end, it always managed to come back to him.

Gwen's hands slipped from the webbing and Andrew shot out his own webbing, wrapping it around her hand in an instant. It was like an instinct: when someone’s in trouble, you help them. The look of relief she gave made it so much worse because _he knew he just fucked up_. He could have just let her fall and that would be that. But he saved her. Now it was going to be his own webbing that failed her.

The relief slowly evaporated from Gwen's face when she realized Andrew wasn't pulling her up. "Andrew?" she called to him in uncertainty.

He tilted his head up towards the power grid. Violet told him that there would be consequences to what Andrew was doing, and he in turn told her he would deal with them. It was either Gwen, or Violet and himself. 

"I'm sorry," he said thickly.

Gwen's eyes widened as she realized what was about to happen. "Peter!"

Andrew let the webbing slide through his fingers. Gwen screamed out in shock as she no longer had anything to hold onto and plummeted towards the water. There was a loud metallic noise near the power grid, but he didn't have a chance to see what it was. Something crashed into his side. Andrew flew sideways hitting one of the suspension towers. 

Peter shot out his webbing towards Gwen. It had been him who pushed Andrew out of the way. The next sound Andrew heard was something that he would never forget. Gwen must not have hit the water yet, because the noise he heard was definitely _something_ breaking. His stomach hurt.

Had Peter not heard what had happened? He continued to pull her up, mumbling under his breath. Andrew stood up as Peter pulled Gwen's lifeless body over the edge of the bridge and up onto the deck platform where they were. Her head hung at an unnatural angle; the whiplash from Peter's webbing had caused her neck to snap. 

"Oh, God." Peter sobbed, ripping off his mask and tossing it to the side. "Gwen. Gwen!" He collapsed onto the ground and cradled her body into his lap. There was no doubt that she was dead. Peter pulled her closer, pressing his forehead against hers, and cried out in agony.

"I wasn't fast enough," Andrew murmured. Peter didn't even look up at him.

It was painful to see him like this; his father who had always been so strong had been paralyzed in his grief. Andrew couldn't accept the fact the he was the one who caused Peter this pain. He could practically feel his pain, and he knew this had broken something inside of him.

Violet's sudden scream shook Andrew out of the near trance he was in. 

"I'm... I'm sorry," was all he could muster up before he swung off of the bridge, hating himself every second for leaving Peter up there by himself.

He made his way to the power grid as fast as he could. Harry's glider had crashed into the ground near one of the coils, and Harry's unconscious body lay beside it. That must have been the noise Andrew heard earlier.

Violet was attempting to tie the last of her webbing knot together while being blasted with Electro's electricity. Andrew jumped forward to stop him when Violet shook her head and yelled out to him. "I reset the system all you have to do is pull the red lever in the control room! Do it now Andrew!"

Andrew swung as quickly as he could. A dead security guard surprised him at first, but he soon found the red lever. As soon as he pulled it, Violet was shot backwards into a power coil, and the electricity bounced from the web knot back into Electro. Whatever Violet had done worked; it was overcharging him, causing the city lights to start turning back on. With a last painful growl from Electro, he burst into nothing; he had been defeated.

"Vi?" Andrew called out to his sister as he left the control room. The shock from the electricity had sent her flying and he needed to make sure she was alright. The elated feeling of defeating Electro was gone the moment he remembered what he had just done to Gwen and Peter. 

"Vi, where are--" Andrew felt the wind knocked out of him as a second force knocked into him, sending him tumbling back several times. 

"You son of a bitch!" Peter yanked the momentarily stunned Andrew off the ground with his webbing, just to knock him back down with a shot to his chest.

"What are you doing?" he held out an arm in defense as he got to his feet. The look of resentment on Peter's face told him everything. Peter wasn't stupid; he knew Andrew could have saved her if he had gotten there sooner. 

He lunged at Andrew, taking another swing that just missed his face. "I _saw_ you! You- you had her! And you just _let her go_!" Peter webbed a chunk of the wreckage from Harry's glider and hurled it towards Andrew, who ducked and swung himself out of the way as a second piece of wreckage came his way.

Andrew wasn't sure what his plan was at this point. He couldn't tell Peter why he did what he did, he would just think he was crazy. In the back of his mind, Andrew thought maybe he could still get away with what happened; he wasn't fast enough, he couldn't hold on properly because he had been electrocuted, or something that didn't take Peter out of his life. There wasn't really anything he could say to him now; he had fucked up whatever chance of friendship he had with him the moment he let go of Gwen. Peter didn't deserve this, and Andrew wasn't going to fight him back.

"You're a murderer. You're just like the people that we save this city from." Peter spit at him. Andrew paused at the accusation, which was all Peter had needed. He leapt forward with brute force, grabbing the back of Andrew's hoodie as he somersaulted over him, and slammed him onto the ground.

"I trusted you!" Peter pinned him to the ground, delivering a solid punch to his face. He was shaking with anger, his eyes narrowed and cold. "I let you in my house!" Punch. "I let you sleep in my room when you had nowhere else to go!" Punch. "I made you that suit!" Peter ripped the mask off of him and threw it aside.

"I know," Andrew gasped. That second punch had broken his nose, and the mask was practically suffocating him with the blood running down his face. "I know," he repeated.

A look of concern crossed Peter's face, before his eyes hardened again. "You were my friend." His voice broke. "I stuck up for you through everything. What did she ever do to you, huh? What did _I_ do?" The anger on his face transformed into betrayal.

"Nothing!" Andrew fought back tears, hating how everything was always his fault. Hating the way Peter was looking at him. None of this was Peter's fault, and he had to know that. 

"Then why?!" Peter cried out, shaking him. "Why!"

"Andrew?" 

Peter and Andrew turned their heads to see Violet limping out of the power grid. Her eyes widened when she saw the state of her brother.

"Get off of him." Violet had tried to make that sound like a command, but her voice was strained and she could barely hold herself up.

"Just stay there, Vi. Everything is fine," Andrew said. He knew Peter's mental state was not the best at the moment, and he didn't need him going after his sister while she was hurt. Despite what he just said, it didn't surprise him when Peter's fist collided with his face again.

"Fuck," Andrew groaned, holding his nose with his free hand. If it wasn't broken before, it definitely was now.

"Everything is _not_ fine!" Peter growled, looking over at Violet once more before turning his attention back to Andrew. "That's another thing. You lied about her; she has powers. What else did you lie to me about?"

Andrew shook his head and closed his eyes, knowing what was coming next. What was the point? He wasn't going to believe anything he told him anyways.

"Stop hitting him!" Violet yelled, much closer now.

Andrew's left eye was nearly swollen shut, and his vision seemed blurry to him in his right. He could just make out Peter's outline in front of him. They had been so focused on each other, that neither of them noticed the newcomer.

"Who are you?" Violet called out.

"Lay another hand on my son and I'll knock your fucking teeth out." 

Andrew knew that voice, but it was impossible that he was hearing it. Peter's weight was suddenly thrown off of him. Andrew opened his good eye as much as he could, ignoring the pain. A man in an all black Spider-man-like suit besides the white spider logo was standing in front of him, arm stretch out towards him. Andrew weakly lifted his arm towards him.

"Dad?" Violet asked in disbelief.

Orange and red suddenly erupted around them. The sound was intense; Andrew wouldn't have been surprised if it rendered him deaf. He heard his sister scream and someone call out to him, and then suddenly nothing.


	14. Chapter 14

Peter woke up in a cold sweat. His eyes darted around the small room he was in; a door and four dull grey damp looking walls. He was surprised his hand stung when he wiped the sweat from his forehead. His eyes widened when he saw the state of his hands; they looked like he had stuck them in a fire. What had happened?

Disoriented, he jumped up from the bed and went to open the door, but it was locked. Ignoring the pain from his hands, he put his strength into it, pushing and pulling at the door, but it wouldn't budge. He spent the next ten minutes calling out for someone, but no response came. Peter swore and turned. He didn't realize how thirsty he was until he noticed the sink. He turned on the faucet but barely any water trickled out. For the next minute he held his head under the faucet and drank whatever would come out.

Peter sat on the bed, checking for any more damage to himself. He was surprised that his hands already looked better than they did when he woke up twenty minutes ago, albeit the change was minimal. Whatever had happened to him must have been recent. He had no personal items on him, in fact he wasn't even in his own clothing. His expression changed to alarm when he saw the orange jumpsuit he was wearing. A little patch on the left side said 'Ravencroft #77437.’

He suddenly felt like he couldn't breathe. He _couldn't_ be in Ravencroft Institute. The last thing he could remember was...

_"Dad?"_

His daughter's voice rang through his ears. That was impossible though; he had been fighting Scarlet, he knew he was going to lose. Everyone around him had been dying and then suddenly... suddenly he had been in a different country. A different time. When he finally found someone who spoke English, he had found out he was in Moscow, Russia. Nearly twenty years in the past, and no idea how he had gotten there. Violet and Andrew had taken the time cube...

The memories came flooding back; flames exploding all around him as he tried to shield his son from the heat. He had, well _past_ him had thrown one of the pumpkin bombs from Harry's glider at them; the little shit.

The black suit he had been in possession of was gone. _That_ had been one of the more peculiar mysteries to him. As soon as he made it back to New York, after weeks of traveling back from Russia without any money, he had wanted to see if his children had found Stryker yet. Instead, he had been greeted by some form of black goo falling out of the sky. It had instantly bonded with him, even imitating his former Spider-Man suit. Peter found he was able to shoot out synthetic black webbing with this new black suit, which he instantly connected with Flash and Eddie. This brought him to another conclusion which he would have to later discuss with Violet and Andrew.

Peter turned his head towards the door as he began to hear two different voices getting closer. He jumped up from his bed and put his back against the wall as he heard the door being unlocked.

One of the guards came in and Peter heard the second guard locking the door behind him. The guard had a crew cut and his name tag read 'Harris.’ He looked too young to be in this type of work.

"Why am I here?" Peter glared at him.

Harris narrowed his eyes at him. It didn't seem like a negative gesture to Peter, more like he was simply regarding him or the question. "There were no personal items on you when they discovered you. Name, please."

"Who's they?" he asked, although he already knew the answer. It would be the same people that had taken Harry away to Ravencroft all those years ago.

"Name," the guard repeated.

"Ben Richards,” Peter said without missing a beat. "Now why am I here?"

"You were found unconscious at the scene of a crime wearing a black suit that looked similar to Spider-Man's. There was webbing found at the scene, another enhanced human who we have identified as Harry Osborn, and the body of a recently deceased girl. The girl's name was Gwen Stacy, and there was also webbing found on her body. We believe you are either Spider-Man, or you have powers similar to him."

Peter huffed. "Well, you're wrong. I'm not Spider-Man." 

"We'll see," the guard shrugged. He had taken out a small notepad and began jotting down notes with his pencil. “As of right now, you're a classified enhanced and/or super human who may have murdered an innocent girl. You are a danger to others and until we rehabilitate you, you will remain here."

"If I am considered dangerous, why are you so comfortable being in here with me without any back up?"

The guard pointed up to a small vent on the ceiling. "You make one wrong move towards me and they will fill this room with an incapacitating agent. I would suggest not causing that to happen because then you lose your free-time privileges."

"Free-time privileges?" Peter repeated skeptically.

"You get one hour every day from noon to one for free-time which you and the other prisoners in the high-security ward will spend in the recreation area. You break something, attempt to harm any of the staff here, fight with other prisoners, or try to escape, you lose that privilege. The amount of time you lose depends on the infraction. There are two days a week where you may have visitors for up to twenty minutes directly after free-time. First meal is at nine in the morning, last meal is at six in the afternoon."

Peter couldn't believe this. How he had managed to get himself locked up was beyond him. "Two meals, huh?"

"It's safer to work with super humans when they're not at their full health. I should also mention our doctor will want to see you sometime this week." 

"This is bullshit." Peter stepped forward, the guard's hand twitched towards his gun, but he stopped. "I didn't kill that girl. I shouldn't be here!" he yelled.

"I'm not the one who decides who gets placed here." The guard tapped his knuckle twice against the door and the other guard outside began unlocking it. "My piece of advice for you is to avoid causing trouble."

The guard left, locking the door behind him, leaving people alone in his cell.

"Fuck!" Peter punched the wall, just barely leaving a dent.

There was a sudden static noise, and Peter looked up in the corner, where there was a small camera and speaker. "You have just lost three days of free time."

Peter swore. There had to be some way he could get out of here. He didn't have his web shooters or the black suit anymore. Did anyone even know he was in here? Would Andrew and Violet figure it out? Harry had the place blown up and that's how he escaped...

Peter froze. Was Harry even in here with him? If he was, Peter would be able to use the explosion as an escape, but that wouldn't happen for months. If Harry wasn't in here, he was going to have to depend on his children finding him if he wanted any chance to get out of here.

The day came and went. The food wasn't as bad as he had expected, but it was rather bland. The breakfast was truly awful, though: a bowl of watery grits. He shuddered but eventually ate them knowing that it would be nine hours before he would be able to eat again.

Peter spent the next twenty minutes attempting to fix the sink problem. There were no tools he could work with so he used his hands, which were now practically done healing. He kept tightening and loosening parts of the pipeline under the sink, making sure he avoiding breaking anything, until finally the water pressure was back to normal.

Three days later a new guard had unlocked Peter's cell. He was shorter than Peter, and had a black lampshade mustache. His name tag had read 'Lopez.’

"Show me your hands." Lopez had his gun trained on Peter as if he were a wild animal. He resisted the urge to make a sarcastic comment.

Peter held his hands out in front and flipped them so the guard could see both sides. Lopez grunted something at the other guard waiting outside.

"Get moving, freak," Lopez nodded his head at the open door.

He had to bite his tongue to keep from saying anything. The other guard gestured for Peter to follow him. Lopez stayed behind him the entire time, his gun aimed at Peter's back. The area outside of his cell was circular. Another guard sat in the middle of the room at a round desk that had many buttons, most of them locked and covered. There were eight cell doors: four on each side of the room. Across the room from him, Peter read the names above the cells: 'Osborn', 'Hills', and 'Kasady'. The other cell was blank. On his side of the room, there was another blank cell, one labeled 'Connors' and one 'Sytsevich.’ 

They passed through two locked doors before coming to the rec room. The guard in front of him, Rhodes, unlocked the door. Lopez jabbed him in the back with his gun and Peter balled up his fists as he walked through the door. Lopez and Rhodes locked the door and left without another word.

Peter was surprised that there were no guards in the room, although he quickly noticed the dome security camera on the ceiling. There was a small couch with a TV in the far corner of the room. A man with red hair was watching some crime show while mumbling to himself and occasionally laughing. Peter instantly recognized Doctor Connors in the other corner of the room that had a small book stand with an armchair. There was a table in the middle of the room with six chairs, Two people were currently sitting there playing checkers: the criminal he had caught trying to steal a truckload of Oscorp chemicals, and another man who Peter assumed was Hills.

Harry was sitting by himself on the floor with his back against the wall next to two arcade games. Peter had recognized the younger Harry immediately, and was surprised that his hair had gone almost back to normal, and his skin no longer had a green tinge to it. 

"We have another new one!" Alexsei announced loudly. Neither Harry or Hills looked towards Peter. Connors lowered his book, _Chasing the Molecule_ , and gave Peter a curious look. He gave a small wave, feeling slightly uncomfortable as Connors seemed to be studying him, and sighed in relief as he got a small nod in return.

"Really?" The man with red hair turned in his chair, putting his hands up onto the head rest and kneeling on the cushion. "Why did they bring you here? Rob a bank and kill all the hostages? Kill your family?"

"Kasady, please," Connors set his book down again, "not everyone is as psychotic as you are."

"Come on, _Lizard_ , don't tell me you've never tried to kill anyone before. What did you think would have happened to all those cars you threw off that bridge if that Spider-Man hadn't saved them?" Kasady grinned.

"Lizard man is right! Only person I ever try to kill was Spider-Man. You the only one who is murderer here Kasady,” Alexsei said as he took one of Hills' checkers off the board. Peter saw Harry's eyes flicker to Alexsei for a second.

"Thank you for that, Mr. Sytsevich," Connors picked up his book again, "but I'd prefer not to be called Lizard."

"Whatever, 127 hours." Kasady sniffed, going back to his TV show.

Peter just stood there, not sure what to say.

"Come. Sit." Alexsei gestured towards Peter. He sat two seats away from the man, glancing over towards Harry before taking his seat. "What is your name?"

"Oh uh- Ben. Ben Richards,” Peter answered.

"We call you Richards, then." Alexsei nodded. "You call me Alexsei," he held out his hand and Peter hesitantly shook it, "only he calls me my last name because no one else pronounce it correctly." Alexsei pointed at Connors, who was getting up from his chair and heading towards their table. Connors took a seat on the opposite side of the table from Peter.

"You like TV?" Alexsei asked Peter. Hills took two of his pieces off the board, which he frowned at. 

Peter drew his eyebrows together. "I haven't had much time for that kind of thing lately." There hadn't been much time for anything the last couple years other than finding new places for his family and himself to hide.

"Well, we have two days open you choose. Friday or Saturday." Alexsei began cursing in Russian as Hills won the game. 

"Oh... um... what?" Peter looked towards Connors in question.

"What he means is that each of us have our own day to have the TV to ourselves. Granted, it is only an hour and the selection of shows that are on at noon are atrocious, but it's something,” Connors explained. "For example, I get Sundays to watch _Law & Order: Criminal Intent_."

"Monday I watch _Baywatch_ , that Pamela Anderson." Alexsei wiggled his eyebrows and cupped his hands in front of his chest mimicking breasts. Peter snorted and shook his head. ”Hills has Wednesday and he watch _The Doctors_ ,” Alexsei said after a few moments.

"I get Tuesday for _Criminal Minds_ and Thursday for _Jerry Springer_!" Kasady called from the couch. "And no, you can't have two days!"

"That one's a bit egocentric," Connors said in a low voice as he gestured towards Kasady. "Watch out for him."

"Right," Peter nodded. "So, any idea what's on Friday and Saturday?"

"Friday you get the choices of _Cooking Made Easy_ , _Law & Order_, _Family Feud_ , or _Jerry Springer_. For the love of God, please do not choose _Jerry Springer_ ," Connors shook his head and gave a look of contempt towards Kasady. "Saturday is _America's Funniest Home Videos_."

"Did he have a preference?" Peter asked, nodded his head towards Harry.

Connors frowned. "Ah, well, no. Mr. Osborn was brought in three days ago and he hasn't been very vocal. In fact, he hasn't said one word to us."

"We might have another Hills!" Alexsei boomed.

Connors sighed. "Hills had his tongue ripped out." Hills glanced at Peter and then back towards the game he began to set up again.

"So why you no talk to us, Osborn? We are not good enough to talk to?" Alexsei laughed and he spun one of the checkers like a top on the table.

"There's no point," Harry grumbled.

Connors raised his eyebrows.

"He speaks," Alexsei said, "What you mean no point?" 

"I just mean that I'm not going to be here long anyways. No point in making _friends_ ," he rolled his eyes.

"Did you want to pick which day?" Peter asked him. Harry barely looked at him before shaking his head and staring back down at the floor. "Alright, then I choose Saturday for _America's Funniest Home Videos_."

"Excellent choice!" Connors smiled, evidently happy that Peter hadn't chosen _Jerry Springer_.

The rest of the hour went by pretty fast. Peter watched Alexsei and Hills play a couple more games of checkers; Hills won every time. Connors kept giving Peter curious looks, and didn't seem at all fazed when Peter kept catching him staring. Kasady would laugh randomly at the show he was watching, and Harry kept quiet up against the wall. After their hour was up, the guards came to the room and took them back to their rooms two at a time. Kasady and Hills went first, followed by Alexsei and Connors, and finally Harry and Peter.

The next four days were pretty similar. Peter checked out the extremely small section of books that the rec room had, and was disappointed. Harry was still sitting on the same spot he usually sat in, up against the wall. He had been unable to come to the rec room yesterday; the guard that Peter was starting to like, Harris, let him know that Harry had an 'episode.’ Which meant the goblin had been out.

Today was Monday and that meant that _Baywatch_ was on. Alexsei sat on the couch, admiring the screen while Hills sat next to him. It seemed that Hills practically followed Alexsei around in whatever he was doing at the time. Kasady was watching the TV from the ground, laying on his stomach with his hands supporting his head. Connors was reading some magazine. 

Harry looked much more pale today. Peter ran a hand through his scruffy hair, debating on whether or not to go and talk to him. Boredom and curiosity got the better of him and he stood up from the table, getting another curious glance from Connors, and walked towards where Harry was sitting.

"Mind if I sit here?" Peter asked when Harry looked up at him. 

Harry's eyes flickered to the empty table, no doubt questioning why he had left a perfectly good chair to come sit on the floor. "Be my guest," Harry sneered at him.

Peter plopped himself on the ground, several feet from Harry. "So, you're Harry Osborn."

Harry scoffed. "And you're Ben Richards."

"You remembered," Peter grinned.

"There are five other people in this room other than me, two of which I knew about prior to my incarceration. It's not hard to remember a couple names," he sniffed derisively. Peter couldn't help but laugh; he had missed the old, condescending Harry Osborn. 

"So why are you in here? Doesn't Oscorp own Ravencroft or something?" Peter asked, pulling at a small loose thread on his sleeve.

Harry tilted his head back against the wall, shutting his eyes and began thrumming his fingers on his arm. "It doesn't matter what I did. I won't be here for long."

"Yeah, you keep saying that. What makes you think you're getting out of here?" Peter asked somewhat challengingly. Harry had been in Ravencroft for months before escaping with Fiers. 

Harry opened his eyes, narrowing them, and opened his mouth as if he was about to answer, before a shadow loomed over them. "What are you two whispering about over here?" Kasady asked with a grin on his face.

"Kasady..." Connors warned.

"Just because you've been here the longest doesn't mean you get to order us around, old man." Kasady was messing with something in his hand. "And you," he pointed towards Harry, "what makes him so special you'll talk to him? We've been trying to talk to you for over a week now."

"Not that it's any of _your_ business, but I didn't ask him to come sit over here," Harry shrugged. He shut his eyes and began thrumming his fingers again.

Kasady sniffed. "Watch how you talk to me, Osborn. You might get away talking to everyone else like that, but do it again and I'll make you bleed."

Harry was suddenly on his feet, his eyes blazed green. "Is that a threat?" he growled, his canines sharp and dangerous. Peter jumped up too, slightly positioned between the two. 

"Get back," Peter ordered, glaring at Kasady. 

"Hell, why wait," Kasady ignored Peter, "it's been too long since I've made someone _bleed_." Peter saw the object in Kasady's hand; a three-inch long rusty nail. He must have taken it from the couch somehow.

Kasady lunged forward, and without thinking, Peter grabbed the hand that held the nail with one arm and punched Kasady in the chest with his free hand. He flew backwards, knocking over the table. 

"You shouldn't have done that." Connors began wiping down his glasses. Alexsei was watching him, but Hills seemed completely uninterested.

Peter looked at him in disbelief. "He was going to hurt someone."

"Your hand," Harry said from behind him. Peter spun around to find Harry and not the goblin. He didn't even feel it until he saw where Harry was staring at; the nail had completely gone through his hand. "Connors is right. You shouldn't have done that."

Peter pulled the nail out just as the door to the room burst open. Four guards came in with their guns drawn; Lopez, Rhodes, Harris, and a guard he hadn't met yet.

"Line up, hand's against the wall, now!" Lopez shouted, pointing at the wall that Peter and Harry were next to. Connors, Alexsei, and Hills prompty did as they were told, lining up next to them against the wall. The unnamed guard stayed by the door as Rhodes checked on the unconscious Kasady.

"Drop your weapon!" Lopez commanded. Peter swore to himself and let go of the rusty nail. He spared a quick glance at Harry as he dropped it, and furrowed his brow as Harry mouthed the word 'sorry' to him. Peter shook his head slightly, it wasn't Harry's fault this happened.

Peter's muscles were suddenly on fire and his entire body stiffened. 

"He dropped it already,” Harry said in a controlled voice.

The tasers were suddenly off. Peter dodged the butt of Lopez’s gun. "You're gonna regret that." Lopez grinned nastily as he cuffed Peter's hands behind him.

The next two weeks were rough, but he’d had worse. Much worse. He was completely confined to his cell, and Lopez made sure he didn't even get his two full meals every day. In fact, the first two days after the incident he had received nothing, which Lopez made sure Peter knew was his fault. Whatever hope that Peter had of this being a legitimate institution died.

After two weeks, Peter was surprised to find Harris unlocking his cell door. He came in with an unreadable expression on his face. It was nearly a minute before either of them spoke.

"When I took this job, I had no idea how crooked most of the people working here were. In fact, my brother in law works here: Rhodes. He used to be one of the funniest, and friendliest people I knew. This place changes people." Harris shook his head, and began digging through his pocket. “Starving people is wrong." 

Peter caught the granola bar that was tossed to him. "Thanks," he said uncertainly. He ate the snack quickly in case the guard decided to take it back for any reason.

"Kasady had several broken ribs and a punctured lung from just one punch of yours. He was released a week after the incident, but due to complications he had to have another surgery. Once he is able to go back to his cell, he will also have two weeks of no rec room,” Harris informed him.

Peter resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "That guy is insane."

"He is. We're actually discussing him being cut from the rec room entirely, but as of right now he is not." Peter nodded. "Also, you've had two people attempt to visit with you since you've been here."

Peter jerked his head up, "Did they say who?"

"Your children, apparently."

"Why haven't I been able to see them?" Peter furrowed his brow.

The guard walked towards Peter and stuffed the empty granola wrapper into his pocket. "No visitors the first week after admission here, or when you're on lockdown. Since lockdown time is over for you, you can see them today. I let them know the days we allow for visitors."

Peter grinned. "Thank you." Harris didn't comment, but motioned for Peter to follow him. He was going to the rec room.

Hills and Alexsei were already watching _The Doctors_ when he came in. The little chat he had with the guard took a few minutes from the hour he got, but it didn't matter. He was glad to hear the news about Kasady.

"Richards, didn't know you were such madman!" Alexsei laughed as Harris shut the door behind Peter.

Harry and Connors were both sitting at the table quietly reading to themselves. Connors nodded to Peter and Harry set the book down, gesturing towards the arcade games. 

"What the hell happened?" Harry asked him as he started up the Jaws-themed pinball machine. Peter took the Pac-Man pinball machine.

Peter shrugged. "I've just been on lockdown for the last two weeks."

The arcade games weren't loud enough to disrupt the television on the other side of the room, but just loud enough to cover their conversation if they talked quietly.

"But you- you knocked Kasady halfway across the room. You _really_ shouldn't have done that,” Harry said anxiously.

"I stopped him from hurting anyone," Peter countered. He really didn't understand why it was such a big deal to everyone. 

"You have powers,” Harry said. It wasn't a question. "The way you hit that guy, there's no way a normal human could do that."

Peter paused. "I do," he admitted. "I figured most people who end up in this section do, though, so why should it matter?”

"The guards, the doctors," Harry paused. "They're going to know now."

Peter huffed out a humorless laugh. "Why do you think I got sent here in the first place? They think they've caught Spider-Man."

"Well, they're wrong,” Harry said pausing again, allowing the pinball to fall through the flippers. "Have they brought you to the white room yet?"

"White room?"

"They experiment on people here," Harry lowered his voice to a near whisper. "My... _friend_ , Max, they treated him pretty badly here. Connors has even been there. I've been in there a couple times the last two weeks. It's..." he shook his head. "It's _wrong_ and I don't understand how they could be doing this. Consider yourself lucky you haven't been there yet."

At the mention of experimenting, flashes of Stryker's Island went through Peter's mind. Nobody would get away with hurting his family anymore, and even though Harry didn't know it yet, he was family to Peter.

"You'll get out of here,” Peter assured him. "Wasn't that what you told everyone?"

"Yeah, I'm not so sure about that," Harry sighed. "I was kind of counting on my buddy Max to get me out of here, but it's been three weeks already. My uh- business partner is working on some stuff I need taken care of on the outside, but I'm not sure he can get us out of here.”

"Us?" Peter raised an eyebrow. There was something different about Harry, and maybe it was just the fact that he didn't actually know who Peter was, but it wasn't until months after escaping Ravencroft that he began showing his humanity again.

"Well, yeah," he rolled his eyes. "You helped me, and you don't even know me. I can't even get my own friends to help me." Harry gave a brief humorless laugh.

Peter tried not to let the guilt eat at him from what Harry said to him. He couldn't blame him for being mad about his best friend keeping such a big secret from him, but at the time it was for his own protection. The less people that knew who he was the better.

"So if one of us finds a way, we include the other,” Peter said. "Anyone else we want to take with us in our impossible escape mission?"

Harry shook his head. "The only reason I even considered helping you was because of what you did for me. Don't get the wrong impression. I'm not a good person." He started up the pinball machine again. 

Peter chose not to comment on that, but he wasn't going to leave Connors behind. Harry had murdered Connors in the original timeline to get to him. A thought suddenly ran through Peter's mind, and he hoped it would work. But before he could get a word out, Connors was calling him over.

"Have you ever read this book?" Connors asked him, holding out a paper cover called _Replay_.

"Uh- no. Never heard of it." Peter turned the book over, seeing if anything looked familiar before handing it back.

"Ah, yes. This is not a book I would normally read, but with what few choices we have here..." Connors trailed off. "My question for you is how you've done it."

"Done what?" he drew his eyebrows together.

Connors took his glasses off and set them in his lap. "You're obviously not from this time, Peter Parker."

He felt like his heart stopped beating. His head quickly whipped around the room, expecting the others to start shouting questions, but no one was actually paying them any attention. He finally breathed again when he realized this, before glaring back at Connors.

"I have no idea what you're talking about." Peter narrowed his eyes. 

Connors looked at him in amusement. "Please don't insult my intelligence, Peter. I knew who you were the moment you walked through that door."

"Okay just-" he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, exhaling loudly, "stop using my name. How do you know who I am?" he asked in an exasperated voice. The door to the rec room opened at that time, and multiple guards came in to start escorting them back to their cells.

Connors and Alexsei were the first two to leave. Rhodes and Harris took Hills and him next, leaving Harry for last. 

"Your two visitors are waiting for you at your cell, Richards." Harris told him as they walked out from the rec room. A feeling of contentment filled him. "You will have twenty minutes and then they will be escorted out."

"Thank you," Peter said. 

They rounded the corner, Harris bringing him to one side of the room, while Rhodes brought Hills to his cell on the other side. Violet and Andrew were waiting for him, just as Rhodes said, right outside of his cell next to one of the guards he had yet to speak to. Peter smiled in relief, he wasn't sure if he'd actually see them again.

"Dad!" Violet lit up when she saw him. She practically ran over to him and engulfed him in a hug, which he was surprised the guards allowed.

"Vi," he hugged her back. 

"Back up to the cell," Harris said lazily. Violet smiled sheepishly and placed herself back by Andrew, who was staring at the ground.

"Andrew," Peter greeted, unable to contain his smile despite the place they were in. Andrew gave him a weak smile in return, barely able to keep eye contact. Violet leaned up and whispered something to Andrew, giving him a small pat on the arm.

Harris cleared his throat before speaking to Andrew and Violet. "You have twenty minutes with your father. After twenty minutes I will escort you back to the entrance. If you wish, you may visit again on Thursday. Just like the rest of the building, the cells all have cameras. If you feel you are in danger at any time, just signal-"

"What the hell are _you_ doing here!?" Someone growled from across the room, causing Harris to stop speaking. Peter whirled around, seeing Harry in Lopez's grip. Harry was looking straight past Peter, and straight at his son.

"Settle down Osborn, or we will use force." Lopez warned him, although Peter knew Lopez didn't mind using excessive force when he could.

"I'll kill you!" Harry shouted, pulling out of Lopez's grip and coming straight for Andrew. Peter instinctively placed himself in front of his children. Harris fired a stun gun, hitting Harry straight in the chest. He fought against it though and Harry- no, the goblin- grinned maliciously as he was still able to take another step forward. "You both betrayed him and you're going to pay!"

Lopez shot out another stun gun, and Harry went down. Peter was unable to do anything as Lopez brought his baton down on Harry's back. Harris had the cell open, and ushered Andrew, Violet, and Peter into the cell. Peter saw one more time, the usual sneer the goblin saved for him geared towards his son, before Harry went unconscious.


	15. Chapter 15

-Twenty minutes after Gwen Stacy died-

The explosion was deafening. Peter had thrown one of the bombs from Harry's glider straight at them, but he was closer than she had been, so the explosion affected him too. Violet had been knocked off her feet, unable to keep her balance due to her mangled leg. Shakily, she stood up and looked around. Parts of the ground were smoldering. Her brother was laying face down, unmoving. 

"Andrew!" She limped over to him, flipping him onto his back. One of his eyes had completely swollen shut, and parts of his hoodie had been singed. "Come on, wake up!" There was no doubt the authorities would be here soon, and they had to get out of there before that happened.

A hoarse cough coming from her right startled her. She bent down and managed to smile despite the situation. "Dad."

"It's me," he managed to say. The black suit he was wearing had pulled itself down to reveal his face; he seemed to be having a hard time breathing. 

"We need to get out of here," Violet urged. She wasn't sure how her father was here at the moment, all she knew was they needed to leave. "Dad?" she asked when he didn't respond. 

Violet straightened up and blew out air in frustration; she was on her own for the time being. They needed to get out of there before the police came, the problem was everyone, including her, was injured, and the rest of them were unconscious. She glanced back at the control room. That was going to have to make due for now. Violet hooked Andrew under the shoulders and began dragging him, wincing as her injured leg wanted to give way. She could hear sirens in the distance.

She set Andrew down for a moment, opening up the control room door, and was surprised to see Peter sitting on the floor digging something out of his leg. As soon as the door opened, his head whipped up.

"No," he shook his head, "get out."

"I need to hide them in here. They're unconscious. I need to see how bad their injuries are," Violet explained. There was a dead security guard off to the side in the room, a victim of Electro's.

"I don't care." Peter dropped something onto the floor, which looked like it could have been a piece of the bomb from Harry's glider. He began digging into his leg again. "After what _he_ did," Peter nodded towards Andrew, "he deserves whatever's coming to him."

Violet narrowed her eyes. "You're not in much of a position to argue." His web shooters were both completely charred and she wondered if they were even unusable.

Peter set another bloody piece of broken bomb tech onto the floor and gave her a once-over. "You're not looking too good yourself." 

" _Please_ ," she tried a different approach. "I haven't done anything to you. I'm just asking you for this one favor; let me hide them in here for now. They can't defend themselves. When it's clear we can all go our separate way."

Peter glared at Andrew. He didn't say anything to Violet, but nodded once. She sighed in relief and began dragging her brother into the control room, the door shutting behind her. His ragged breathing was worrying her. She turned to go out the door and grab her father when something caught her eye through the window.

"Oh no," Violet ducked down. There were about three black vans that pulled up to the scene. She very carefully peeked out the window. A couple men were carrying her father to one of the vans, a van that had 'Ravencroft' written on the side. "No..." she whispered. 

"What is it?" Peter grudgingly asked.

"There are men out there. Not police,” she said. Peter had crawled over next to her and looked out the window as well. "They have our father."

Peter sniffed disdainfully. "Andrew told me his father was dead."

More men came out of the second and third vans, scooping up Harry with his suit on and then coming back for his glider. Suddenly, two of the men started walking towards the control room.

"Lock the door," Peter whispered harshly as he pulled the dead security guard under the panels. He then pulled Andrew under the control panels, ducking under them as well.

Violet locked the door just before one of the men tried to open it. She hid herself from view underneath the control panel. She and Peter were completely silent, and she wondered if they would be able to hear Andrew's ragged breathing.

A flashlight beam shone into the room, and Violet quickly webbed the two pieces of broken bomb Peter had dug out of his leg over to them, just in time as the flashlight skimmed over that area a second later. She pulled Andrew closer.

The light was suddenly gone and they heard footsteps walking away. Neither of them moved. Violet was able to peek out the window again, when Andrew shifted next to her. When he opened his eyes she felt like crying.

"Vi?" he asked. He turned his head and coughed.

"Shh," Violet whispered. "You're going to be okay." Violet checked the window, and the last of the black vans was driving away. The only evidence that anything had happened here was the patch of burnt grass where the glider bomb had gone off. "They're gone now."

Peter got to his feet first. "He's awake. You should both probably leave before the police show up. Or don't. Doesn't matter to me."

"Come on, Andrew." Violet helped him to his feet. His breathing sounded much better now. "We need to leave."

Peter opened the door and listened. There were definitely sirens out there, but there had been so many accidents tonight, they may or may not be heading straight to the power grid. Someone would have called about Gwen by now though.

"What... happened?" Andrew croaked.

"Don't talk yet. We need to leave and you're hurt." Violet said. She had him sling one of his arms on his shoulder. The fact that she was much shorter than him probably wasn't doing it much good, though.

Peter turned towards them, halfway out of the front doorway. "One more thing," he started. "I may have been lenient just now due to the circumstances, but don't mistake that for any form of forgiveness. I don't want to see either of you ever again."

Violet paused. She understood why he felt the way he did, but he didn't understand why it had been so necessary. 

"And you," Peter turned to Andrew, "I'm giving you fair warning. If I see you again after tonight, I'll kill you."

Andrew was just as silent as Violet had been. Peter left without another word.

"C-can you swing?" Violet tried to make her voice sound strong. She didn't want it to seem like Peter's words had affected her in any way.

"Yeah. Just hurts to breathe." Andrew coughed again. He tried dusting his hoodie off, but it was useless; the fire had singed too much of it. He pulled whatever was in his pockets out and tossed the damaged item on the floor. "What's this?" Andrew narrowed his eye at what he had taken out of his pocket. It was a flattened Milky Way candy bar wrapper. He flipped it over and there was a short message written in what looked like sharpie. He passed it to Violet who read it quickly and looked at Andrew in mirrored confusion.

_"Stop trying, your lives depend on it"_

XXX

-Ravencroft Institute-

"I've missed you two." Peter attempted to break the silence after the incident with Harry and the guards in the hallway. He was sure that they had just as many questions as he did, and they only had twenty minutes to ask them.

"We've missed you too, Dad," Violet said. 

"You're both okay, right?" Peter asked them.

"Of course we are." Violet looked towards her brother and then back to him. "We have a lot to talk about."

Peter let the two of them update him on everything that he had missed since they had traveled to this time; trying to figure out where Stryker was, enrolling in their old high school, secretly staying in Harry's guest house, how the black time cube shattered, how Andrew befriended Peter, and what had happened this time around the night Gwen Stacy died. Peter had asked the occasional question, but tried to let them tell him as much as possible. Andrew was quieter than usual, and it wasn't until Violet told him that Andrew had to let Gwen fall, that Peter finally understood.

"You did what you had to do," Peter said firmly. "If you did nothing, then your sister and you wouldn't have been born. If Gwen had remained alive... I would have followed her anywhere."

Andrew didn't look too sure but he nodded nonetheless. 

"We've had no luck in finding Stryker. We might have to wait until _that_ night." Violet changed the subject. "But, now that you're here, we at least have a way of getting back home."

"What do you mean?" Peter asked.

"The black cube is broken. You must have used the white cube to find us." Violet ended the sentence in more of a question form.

"I don't have it." Peter raked his fingers through his hair. "Scarlet had left me to die. She was going to keep Normie alive, I think. Suddenly I was in Russia, in this time. I have no idea what happened. I was alone."

"Did Scarlet use the white cube to come here?" Violet's voice was laced with worry.

Andrew shook his head. "She would have killed us by now."

"Listen, we only have a few minutes left. Don't interact with the other me for awhile. He's... he's going to grieve for awhile, but then MJ comes into his life. He'll be fine,” Peter explained. It was weird talking about his former self. "That black suit I was wearing, do you know where it is?"

"The men took you here while you were wearing it,” Violet said.

Peter swore. "That suit is what creates Venom. I get that now. I was on my way to the power grid when this black pile of goo attached itself to me. I tried getting it off, but I was running out of time. I wanted to see Gwen one last time," he looked abashed, "but I wasn't going to interfere. I have a theory though; I think I always create Venom."

"What do you mean?" Violet's brows pulled together.

The door began to unlock and Harris came in a moment later. "Time's up."

"We'll come back next week." Violet gave her father a pointed look. "Same day."

Peter didn't ask why they weren't going to come back on the second visiting day of the week. He gave the both of them a quick hug before they were ushered out of his cell. Twenty minutes was nowhere near long enough; there was still so much that they needed to talk about.

Harry didn't show up during free time for the next three days. Kasady was either still recovering from his surgery or as Harris said, wasn't able to have free time anymore. Peter hoped it was the latter. Harry was going to have questions about Andrew and Violet after seeing them visit with him. He was going to stick to the truth this time around, as much as possible. His family and friends deserved that. After hearing that Peter- or well, _he_ \- told Harry his secret this time gave him a lot to think about. He could have figured out a cure, Harry wouldn't have had to use the spider venom and become the Goblin, Gwen could have lived. But then, he would have never had Violet and Andrew. He wouldn't trade them for anything.

Sunday came around; he and Connors got to the rec room at the same time. Connors went right to the TV to put on _Law & Order: Criminal Intent_. Hills and Alexsei came in next and went right to the checkers board. He briefly wondered if Harry was going to be able to come back anytime soon, and smiled just as the door opened a third time. Harry was shoved into the room by Lopez, who locked the door behind him. 

Without saying a word to anyone, Harry went straight to the pinball machines. He went to the _Jaws_ one, so Peter chose _Pac-Man_ again. 

"So, you're back." Peter mentally kicked himself. Harry didn't reply or even look at him. "I've been through every magazine in here already, so I'm thinking about moving on to the books next."

He sensed what was about to happen next, but didn't stop it. Peter found himself up against the wall a moment later. Harry was seething in anger, barely holding himself together. If Peter had dodged him, it may have angered him further. While Harry was stronger than the average human, he was nowhere near as strong as he used to be; after Stryker experimented on him. As it was, Harry was holding him several inches from the ground.

"Who are you? What were you doing with _them_?" Harry growled.

Peter cleared his throat. "I'll tell you, just let me go. If the guards see this, you'll get in more trouble."

"I don't care." Harry said, although his grip loosened and Peter felt his feet hit the floor. "Who are you?" he repeated.

"Need help, Richards?" Alexsei called to him. Peter shook his head and waved his hand as if it were no big deal. Alexsei shrugged and went back to his game. Peter noted that Connors looked as if he was about to jump up and help him, although he wouldn't be much help against Harry.

Harry let the front of Peter's orange jumpsuit go. He tilted his head towards the door, as if waiting for the guards to come in and tackle him, but the door stayed locked.

"I'll tell you as much as I can, but you need to keep everything I tell you a secret," Peter whispered. 

Harry raised an eyebrow skeptically. "I'm not making any promises."

Peter began playing the game again, gesturing for Harry to as well.

"You need to keep what I'm going to tell you a secret. If the wrong people find out, not only will it put my life in danger, but my family and friends will be in danger too."

Harry scoffed. "Who am I going to tell? I'm stuck in here for the moment, and everyone is going to know about me when I get out."

"You're wrong. Nobody is going to know that you were ever at Ravencroft. There will be a cover story." Peter smirked. "In fact, you'll even get your company back."

Harry made a disbelieving sound. "What makes you think that?"

"Because I'm from the future."

XXX

The sun was blazing during this time of day, reaching over a hundred degrees at times. The humidity was the worst; he could practically feel the water in the air as he ran. When he got to the clearing he pulled the last snack he had out of his pocket; a crumbled strawberry poptart. He shrugged and quickly ate it.

"You're back. That was quick." 

Normie turned around calmly. He was used to how quiet Scarlet could be. "You told me to be." He stuffed the poptart wrapper into his pocket.

Scarlet gestured towards the pathway. "Come. Let's walk and you can update me on what my other _children_ are up to."

They had been spending time in Brazil lately, so that Scarlet could keep an eye out for Stryker. She occasionally went to the island by herself, but today she finally had Normie meet her there.

"It would be faster if we ran there,” Normie pointed out. They were on one side of the island, and the prison was nearly three miles from where they were. 

"We have some things to discuss,” Scarlet said, beginning to walk down the path. Normie followed her, staying on her right side and slightly behind her.

"The girl- Gwen Stacy- she's dead. My father is currently at Ravencroft Institute."

"How is my favorite spider doing?" 

"He's devastated,” Normie said, knowing that was just what Scarlet wanted to hear. 

Scarlet smiled smugly. "Maybe I should pay him a visit. There's just something about him that reminds me of a kicked puppy. I love it."

Normie didn't respond. Scarlet could impersonate Mary Jane easily if she wanted to; Stryker's experimentation on her had not only made her stronger, but she had stopped aging. Frozen forever at age nineteen. Normie fought the urge to groan. Scarlet couldn't go to New York, not yet; she didn't know about Peter.

He wasn't exactly surprised to see that Peter, the Peter from _his_ time, had made it to New York City, but it was concerning to him nonetheless. Peter had been on the brink of death when Normie decided to bring him with them back in time, and he wasn't sure how much he was going to remember. If he told Andrew and Violet that Normie and Scarlet were here in this time, they might try something against Scarlet that would ultimately get them all killed.

He should have been more specific on the note he left in Andrew's pocket. 

The problem was that Scarlet made it very clear what would happen if Normie revealed himself to any of them. He thought for a moment, when he had saved Andrew from a painful electric shock from that blue guy they were chasing, that he may have been seen. Scarlet had sent him to New York to ensure certain events happened, and although he hadn't been seen, he was going to have to be more careful. He couldn't risk his family's lives because he was selfish.

Scarlet unexpectedly bumped her shoulder into him, interrupting his thoughts. "I'm not going to kill him yet," she said in what Normie assumed was supposed to be a reassuring voice. He glared at her while she looked at him amusedly. "Don't look so glum. I'll let you get in your 'goodbyes' to them before the time comes."

"I want to see them," he said. He was going to have to find out how much _their_ Peter knew about how he got here. But also, he just really wanted to talk to his family again.

"You just got back from New York." Scarlet's voice became flat.

"You know what I mean."

Scarlet didn't speak again for several minutes. Normie glanced at her; her eyes were cold and calculating. He sighed and continued on in silence.

"If they find out about you, they find out about me, and they can't know yet. Even though I can take them all out within minutes, I'd rather not risk my back up plan," she said, flipping her hair over her shoulder.

Normie raised an eyebrow. "Back up plan?"

"I need Peter to fall in love with Mary Jane. He is the only reason that Stryker took an interest in her. I need her to become like me. If she doesn't, there's a chance I could be erased,” Scarlet explained.

"But you said as long as we stay in this time we would be fine."

"And we will be," she said, "but you always need a back up plan."

"You mean if something happened with the cube, and we got sent back to our time you mean,” Normie said slowly. "If that happens, I'll get erased no matter what because you plan on killing my father. Again," he said testily.

Scarlet shrugged. "I'm afraid there's no back up for you," she said in a clipped tone. "Now, let's get back to the main point. Once Mary Jane and Peter are together, I'll allow you to go to Andrew and Violet. You remember our agreement about them?"

"If I can convince them to join you, you'll spare them,” Normie said.

"And if they refuse, you dispose of them yourself, or you can die with them,” Scarlet said in a nonchalant tone. Normie shivered. "Andrew was an asset to the team back then, so maybe their alliance wouldn't be so bad."

Normie held himself together, wanting to bounce with excitement. "I won't mention about you, I swear. I'll tell them I got to the other cube first and came here alone. They won't know anything about you."

Scarlet stopped walking. "Scratch that. I need to become more acquainted with _this_ Stryker. He doesn't fully trust me yet..." She was mostly talking to herself now.

"You found him? When?" Normie asked in confusion. She had not mentioned anything about finding him. Stryker was the priority to Scarlet.

"...it wouldn't matter if Peter and Mary Jane got together or not. Stryker _knows_ about me. We could just bring her to the island, and Peter would be none the wiser."

"You'd be risking Violet and Andrew's lives."

"They're lucky I haven't turned them into dust." Her mouth set in a hard line. When he frowned at that, she let out a light laugh. "Lighten up, Normie. Come on, I have something to show you." 

She was gone in a blur, but Normie caught up to her quickly. Even with slowing down to match her speed, they made it to their destination in about fifteen seconds. Scarlet had stopped about forty feet away from the place she had wanted to show him. It was the place that he was born in; the place he grew up in. 

"Welcome home," Scarlet folded her arms in front of her chest. There were multiple people working on the outside of the building; putting up fences and cameras. A few of the workers glanced at them apprehensively. "The inside of the building is completely finished," she explained.

"We're going to live here again?" Normie wasn't too sure on how he felt about that. He was absolutely sure Andrew would never want to be here again. Scarlet nodded, admiring the place.

"I have not forgotten about what day it is, just so you know." Scarlet said suddenly. Normie scrunched up his face in confusion because there was _no_ way she could be talking about what he was thinking of. "Twelve, right?" Normie nodded.

He had learned that Scarlet had no real emotions after Stryker experimented on her, but ever since the day the building exploded and Scarlet was 'activated', it was almost as if some of Mary Jane had wormed it's way back into her.

"Who did Stryker put in charge of during his absence?" Scarlet called out to the workers.

The men all looked around at one another until one of them decided to come over. "I'm Evan, I was in charge of this operation."

Scarlet raised an eyebrow as the corner of her mouth quirked up. "Was?"

"Yes... up until yesterday when we were told to follow your orders. You are Scarlet?" A bead of sweat trickled down Evan's forehead. Scarlet just blinked in response. "I mean, of- of course you are."

"How many do you currently have here already?" Scarlet asked. She didn't even question him about Stryker putting her in charge.

"Four," he answered promptly. "Five now that you brought him," Evan pointed towards Normie.

Normie looked at her in question. Scarlet stared at Evan through narrowed eyes.

"Stryker said you might be bringing more along with you," he reached out towards Normie when suddenly a howl of pain filled the air. 

Evan's arm had been ripped clean off. He fell to the ground; a knob of bone stuck out where his arm had been. Normie stared in awe, taking several steps back.

"No one touches him. He has more of a right to be here than any of you." Anger seeped into her voice. Evan could do nothing but whimper about his arm. All of the workers were now staring at them with looks of shock and fear. She looked towards the others as she continued, "this is Normie. _He_ will be in charge while Stryker and myself are not available. Get back to work."

If the situation were different, it would be comical how everyone nodded practically at the same time and began working as if nothing just happened. Evan was now laying in a pool of his own blood, growing paler every second. He'd be dead in the next few minutes.

Scarlet turned, cupping Normie's cheek. He shivered at her cold touch. "I've got some work to do. I'll be back in a couple of weeks and then we can talk about you going to New York."

"Y-you're leaving?" Normie asked as she began walking away.

"I'll be back. This is yours while I'm gone," she gestured towards the building. "Happy Birthday." She winked before speeding off again.

Normie almost smiled.


	16. Chapter 16

Harry was staring at him in what Peter could only call disinterest. He scoffed before running a hand through his hair and leaning up against the wall. "That's the best you could come up with, 'I'm from the future.'?"

Peter chuckled, already knowing that Harry wasn't going to believe him. Yet. "It's the truth. In fact, we're friends."

Harry seemed to give Peter a once-over before sighing and sliding down the wall into a sitting position. He began to rub his temples.

Peter began again when he realized Harry wasn't going to respond. "There are some details I can't tell you yet, but I will. I promised you a long time ago that I wouldn't keep anything from you again. Give me a--"

"Just stop, alright." Harry shook his head. "I don't _know_ you. Just because-" he looked around and lowered his voice even more, "just because we decided to help each other get out of here does not make us friends."

"Okay look," Peter sat down across from Harry, "let's just forget about what I said for now. Just remember that I told you." Harry looked away dismissively. "You'll believe me when there's proof."

The machine that Gustav Fiers had made for Harry would prove useful in that aspect. He would be able to show Harry who he was through his memories. Maybe he could even convince Harry to let him tinker with it so it wasn't so painful...

"How do you know those two that were in here? The girl and Andrew?" Harry asked.

"Andrew?" Peter didn't know Harry knew him by name. 

Harry leaned forward. "Yes, Andrew. The one with the," he pointed to his own eyes, "unnatural blue eyes. Has spider powers, sound familiar?"

"Why does it matter to you?" Peter asked. Harry's eyes flashed green and a low growl rumbled in his throat. "Before you get angry, I'm just curious."

Harry leaned back away from him, letting his back rest against the wall again. "You should already know, being from the future and all."

"You're right, I do know most of what happened. You're angry and I get that. Your best friend, Peter, told you he'd help you find a cure for the disease you had. He didn't, or wasn't able to, so you took matters into your own hands. You injected yourself with the spider venom and it affected you differently. It cracked your psyche and now you periodically turn into the Goblin." Peter half-smiled. "Who I am not much of a fan of, by the way."

Harry stared at him in disbelief. "You _can't_ know that," his voice wavered a little. "Only a handful of people know, and due to their involvement, I'd have to assume they wouldn't be senseless enough to tell anyone. And- and Menkin, he... I..." he trailed off, staring down at his hands. 

So Harry had killed Menkin this time around again. Not that the man didn't deserve it, but his friend was already a murderer. Then again, most of their little makeshift family has killed before, whether it was out of defense, mind control, or insanity; Harry, Felicia, Mary Jane, Andrew, and even himself. Peter exhaled loudly, moving some of the hair from his face. It was going to have to get cut; it would soon be able to rival Thor's. He let out a chuckle at that thought.

"Andrew told you," Harry growled, pulling Peter out of his thoughts. 

Peter didn't respond. Harry was not going to believe anything he said about him being from the future, and he couldn't blame him. If it didn't actually happen to him, he sure as hell wouldn't just believe someone about that without proof. Especially someone that he didn't even know he knew. Harry, obviously annoyed from Peter's sudden lack of conversation, stalked off to the other side of the room. They didn't talk again for the rest of the day.

XXX

Peter had already been stuck in Ravencroft for almost a month. The next month went by agonizingly slow. Peter was happy to find that Kasady _did_ end up losing his right to the rec room. The guard Harris would sometimes have 'extra' snacks on him that he snuck to Peter, which Peter would in turn split with Harry. 

Andrew and Violet came by to visit him twice a week. They were able to go into detail about everything that has happened so far, and other possible ideas to get Peter and Harry out of there. Peter didn't want them to get involved, and told them he had a plan and not to worry about him. The note that they showed him, " _Stop trying, your lives depend on it_ ", confused him. He thought maybe his younger self could have written in, but dismissed the idea.

Gustav Fiers came by once a week to visit with Harry, which was worrying but necessary. From what he remembered, Harry had been in Ravencroft for just over two months before Fiers was able to break him out. This gave them about a week or so before the event was supposed to happen, but Harry hadn't said a word about it to him. Peter wondered if Harry decided to cut him from his escape plan.

He felt like he had made _some_ progress with Harry during their time together. Sometimes they talked about their past (which Peter had to keep vague), or meaningless topics. Some days they would sit in silence, or watch a show. More often than not, Harry was unable to visit the rec room due to his 'episodes' which was code for the Goblin was out.

"What is something that everyone looks stupid doing?" Peter asked one day, trying to pass the time. 

"Stepping into a spider web." Peter raised an eyebrow at that. "What?" Harry smirked. "You look like you're trying to fight a ninja ghost."

"A ninja ghost?" Peter repeated.

"Or a ghost ninja." Harry shrugged. "Now you."

Peter thought for a moment. "Chasing a plastic bag."

"I've never done that." Harry shrugged again. "Why would someone do that?"

"You've never had to chase a plastic bag? Never accidentally let one go and the wind took it away? Plastic is horrible for the environment," he deadpanned.

Harry sighed and rested his head against the wall behind him. "I need to get out of here." His voice was flat.

Peter snorted. "Sorry my company isn't all too entertaining."

"It's not that," Harry was clenching and unclenching his fist, "it's me. I need to figure out a way to stop these... transformations from happening. It _hurts_."

"Has Fiers figured out anything yet?" Peter questioned in a low voice. 

Harry steepled his fingers, humming. "There are a few things that he's looking into for me." Peter didn't miss the analytical look he threw at Alexsei.

"Way to be cryptic," he said in mock irritation.

"No worries, Richards." Harry smirked at him. "You helped me, therefore I'll make sure you get out of here with me."

Peter nodded. He honestly could not wait to get out of this place.

Harry began to restlessly shake one of his legs up and down. "You're still not going to help me with with _Parker_ and that shadow of his?"

It was Peter's turn to sigh now. He tried to ignore how the way Harry practically spit his name hurt. "I told you, Andrew is under my protection."

"You still won't tell me why!" he growled. 

Peter studied him for a moment. "You will understand in time." Harry scoffed. "Also, I don't think picking a fight with Spider-Man would be smart."

"You and I together could destroy him." The way Harry was grinning made Peter's stomach turn; he looked down at his hands instead. He had almost forgotten the amount of hate Harry had had for him at this point in time.

"I can try to help you in some other way, but I am not going to allow any harm to come to them." Peter said with finality.

"Fine," Harry snickered, causing Peter to look back up at him. "When that time comes, we're just going to have to take you down too."

The Goblin's sinister green eyes were staring back at him.

XXX

"Just go talk to her. It's not that hard. Just... just go downstairs and ask her to- no, that's stupid." Peter ran a hand through his hair, trying to convince himself to talk to his new neighbor. Well, she wasn't exactly _new_ , seeing as they had been childhood friends. Finding out that she had moved back into her aunt's house, who Peter's aunt was friends with, was a nice surprise.

Mary Jane Watson was currently sitting cross legged in a chair on her front porch. She has come over the other day to inform him and Aunt May that she moved in with her Aunt Anna and was staying for the foreseeable future. Mary Jane had moved in about three weeks ago and Peter had only talked to her twice. 

Peter had taken a break from being Spider-Man after Gwen's death. A part of himself would always feel guilty about what had happened, but in the end he had done everything he could to save her. Andrew and Harry were to blame.

_Especially Andrew._

So after about a month of wallowing in his own self-pity, he put on the suit again, and he couldn't have made a better choice. He had a responsibility to the city and it's people, and he wasn't going to abandon them again any time soon. He had returned to being Spider-Man again just a week before Mary Jane had moved in.

Peter opened the upstairs curtain just a fraction. Mary Jane was already out of her chair, picking up her book and other belongings before heading back into her house. It was going to start getting dark soon. Peter let the curtain go, figuring he could try talking to her tomorrow instead.

Aunt May would be at work for another three hours, because she had taken to picking up extra shifts at the hospital, so Peter decided to suit up and go out into the city. Crime had been fairly mild lately; mostly muggings and the occasion building that caught on fire. No lizard monsters, people who could turn into an electric current, or anything out of the ordinary.

Peter sat down on the edge of a paper company tower, looking out into the city as the sun set behind it. After admiring the view for a few minutes, he swung into the city and got to work.

Within the next two hours, Peter had to only stop two muggings, break up a bar fight that had shifted onto the public streets, and stop someone trying to break into an ATM. As Peter watched from a distance, making sure the police picked up the ATM thief, he realized where he was. The Osborn mansion was just a couple blocks away from here. He deliberated for a moment, but curiosity got the better of him. To his displeasure, it began to drizzle.

Making sure to stay out of sight, he crouched on top of the masonry fence and scanned the property. He wasn't exactly sure what he had expected. It was completely dark inside the mansion, not a single light had been left on. Peter wondered if any of the caretakers still kept up with the place since Norman Osborn had passed and the last remaining Osborn was in Ravencroft.

Peter felt an enormous wave of guilt as he thought about Harry. There had been several times he questioned whether or not he should visit him in that place, but he was still unsure on what he would even say, or if Harry would even want to see him for that matter. Make no mistake, he would never forgive him for what happened with Gwen, but he still couldn't get over how much he regretted what happened to Harry.

Finding a way to cure Harry should have been his priority. He couldn't go back in time and fix what happened, but his friend shouldn't have to suffer for his mistakes. The more that he had thought back on it, the easier it was to see that Andrew had stopped him every time he wanted to go to Oscorp. Peter wasn't sure what his motives were, but he couldn't believe he had been mislead like that. Andrew had let him down, and in turn, Peter had let down Harry.

His head spun to the right quickly as a light flickered. There was a guest house at the end of the property, although Peter and Harry were never allowed to go in there when they were children. He could have swore the light had turned on, but there shouldn't be anyone here. He was about to leap down onto the property when somewhere in the distance, a woman screamed. The light suddenly became insignificant and Peter took off in the direction of the sound. The rain picked up.

He was just closing in on where the scream had came from. This time a man starting yelling, "No, no!" Peter began climbing around the side of the building in order to get a quick view of what he would be up against. A woman wearing a short black skirt, presumably the one who had screamed, came running from around the corner. She didn't look behind her, but did shout out a "thank you!".

Admittedly a little baffled, Peter quickly climbed around the corner of the building. There were two figures; the first of which had his back turned to him. They had a dark hoodie on, covering the back of their head, with their fists clenched at their sides. The other person was laying back down on the pavement; he had been knocked out and his hands looked tied together. Peter narrowed his eyes and even through the rain, he could tell what was holding the man's hands together; webbing.

"I know you're there." Andrew called out, just loud enough for him to hear.

Peter's teeth clashed together in anger and he dropped down to the wet pavement below. Andrew hadn't even turned around.

"I thought I was clear when I told you I never wanted to see you again," he spat.

"This piece of _garbage_ was going to..." Andrew sighed loudly, unclenching his fists that had gone white at the knuckles, "that girl. She needed help."

Peter glanced down at the man on the ground. His right eye was red and swollen and a switchblade was a few feet from his unconscious body. 

"I could have taken care of it," he said through his teeth.

Andrew turned then, pulling back the wet hood from his face. The rain, just as soon as it started, began to lighten. His eyes narrowed momentarily as he made eye contact with Peter before his expression became unreadable. 

"The police are almost here." Andrew shifted his gaze to behind Peter.

Peter turned towards the noise of the approaching sirens. Somebody must have heard the commotion. He turned back towards Andrew, but he was gone. "Oh, no you don't!" he yelled as he spotted Andrew climb over the top of a building.

He reached the top of the building, quickly jumping over just as Andrew was leaping to the next building. He wasn't going to get away. Peter followed him building after building, getting closer every time, until Andrew suddenly stopped in his tracks. Peter nearly ran into him, skidding to a halt as he turned around. The corner of Andrew's mouth quirked up as if he was trying to hold in a laugh, but his expression dulled quickly.

"What are you doing!?" Peter threw up his arms in question. 

"I wasn't trying to run away, I just thought it would be better if we weren't at the scene when the police arrived." Andrew shrugged.

Peter shook his head at the nonchalant gesture. "Why are you even _here_ still!? It's been two months already. I told you what would happen if I saw you again," he said threateningly.

"You said if you saw me again, you were going to kill me," Andrew said casually as he crossed his arms. "Well, here I am."

Peter took a step forward. Here was one of the people responsible for Gwen's death. He could get revenge if he wanted to; a life for a life. He _did_ say he would kill him if he ever saw him again. He had wanted to. Peter had become friends with this person, trusted him with his secret, and even opened his home to him. What did he get in return? Betrayal. 

Andrew raised an eyebrow at Peter's hesitation.

"I'm not going to kill you." Peter sighed.

Andrew slightly narrowed his eyes, almost studying him. "Because... Spider-Man doesn't do that. He doesn't kill people. Not even the bad ones."

"At least you admit you're not a good person."

"I've done a lot of bad things," Andrew shook the rain from his hair, "and maybe I'm not necessarily _good_ , but I wouldn't say I'm a bad person."

"You killed someone." Peter said straight faced. 

"What if I said there was a pretty significant reason for what I did? A life-or-death kind of situation?"

Peter ripped off his mask. "Except someone did die. Her name was Gwen." Andrew winced. "Leave the city. Tonight. You and your sister, and your 'dad' or whoever that was, considering you told me he was dead," he added on as an afterthought.

"We thought he was dead, I never lied to you about that. I never wanted to lie to you about anything." Andrew sounded so sincere that Peter wanted to believe him. "As for my Dad, he's in Ravencroft. I'm not leaving without him."

"Maybe you should be in there with him." Peter laughed without humor. "I can always just turn you in."

Andrew smirked challengingly. "That'll never happen."

"If you leave the city, we won't have to find out."

"I'm not leaving." Andrew said more forcefully.

"I can always out your name to the public."

Andrew nodded his head thoughtfully. "You _could_ do that, but it would be pointless. Everyone I care about has powers to defend themselves." Except Aunt May. "Besides, do you really think Grimshaw is my real last name?"

Peter shook his head. "It doesn't surprise me. Just another lie." Andrew frowned.

"You want to know what my last name is?"

Peter held his hand up. "It doesn't matter." He put his mask back on. "Leave the city, I don't need another ex-friend of mine ending up in Ravencroft." Peter left without another word.


End file.
